"Toto" and The Psychopath Test

     In this chapter of Jon Ronson’s, The Psychopath Test, the author focuses on a specific psychopath: Emmanuel “Toto” Constant. Ronson travels to the Coxsackie Correctional Facility to test out his newly learned psychopath detection skills from the use of Bob Hare’s psychopath checklist, which he learned how to use in the previous chapter of the book. Prior to his meeting with “Toto,” Ronson describes how Toto landed himself in the correctional facility in the first place. Constant (Toto) set up the paramilitary group FRAPH, with which he and his followers terrorized thousands of people in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where he was living at the time. They burned down houses, raped women, beat and shot people of all ages, and committed so many more horrible acts. Toto was to be put in jail, but with his conniving ways he managed to be put on what was basically house arrest in Queens, where Ronson visited him the first time, at his mother’s house. After that visit, the chapter jumps back to present time, where Ronson meets with Toto in the correctional facility. He asks questions specifically to bring out the psychopathic nature of Toto, and succeeds. Ronson is rewarded with Toto saying things like: “you select the kind of emotion you want” and “I don’t feel empathy. It’s not a feeling I have. It’s not an emotion I have… I don’t feel sorry for people. No.” Upon his departure from the correctional facility Ronson has determined that indeed, Toto is a psychopath.

     I really enjoyed these two chapters. Finally getting to know what was actually on the checklist for psychopathic behavior and how it all fit together was a relief, since they’ve been talking about it for so long and not actually saying what it was. I was surprised by some of the tests that Bob Hare had used on his volunteers to create his list, but it was the kind of time where those tests were still allowed. Perhaps the most interesting part of this reading, however, was hearing about Toto. I had no idea that had actually happened in Port-au-Prince! It’s such a horrible chain of events, and the fact that he got off with so little of a punishment due to his conniving ways amazes me. Ronson’s interview with him in the correctional facility was very interesting as well. The way that Toto flat out said he didn’t have emotions was surprising to me though. I thought he’d try to at least make himself seem normal? Unless he doesn’t realize the things that he says and does, and doesn't feel, are the traits of a psychopath?

Psychopaths Dream in Black-and-White

In this chapter of Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test, the author focuses on the methodology used by Elliott Barker, and others, to cure psychopaths and schizophrenics of their mental illnesses. Ronson came across Elliott Barker through references to Barker in academic papers read in Ronson’s search of understanding the meaning of psychopathy. After many attempts to contact Barker without success, Ronson was rewarded with a response from Barker himself. With this newfound connection he was told of Elliott’s journey to becoming a psychiatrist, and the use of radical mental illness treatment methods. In Elliott’s personal research of treatment methods he learned of nude psychotherapy sessions where all participants are completely nude for a twenty-four hour nonstop session. Barker also came across Kingsley Hall, where schizophrenics and doctors alike become patients together. These influences led to Elliott’s use of LSD-injected, nude sessions in his psychotherapy program for criminal psychopaths. These sessions lasted for eleven days at a time and patients would ‘counsel’ each other in their time together. After many sessions, some patients were said to be ‘cured’ and they were freed from jail and sent back into the world. However, despite their ‘cured’ status, eighty percent of the psychopaths released back into civilization relapsed, killing again, thus proving the psychotherapy sessions were a failure and actually made the criminals worse as the previous relapse percentage had only been sixty percent.

As I was reading this chapter of Ronson’s book, I was very surprised at some of the methodology psychiatrists were able to use in the ‘so-called’ treatment of their psychopathic patients. I had never heard of such a thing as nude therapy sessions and especially not the use of LSD on criminal psychopaths in order to let them counsel each other in a hallucinogenic state. In addition, I could not believe that Barker thought he had ‘cured’ his patients. Psychopathy is not something that can be cured through the use of LSD and counseling from other psychopaths. Psychopathy is a mental condition that does not have a cure. I am also curious as to how these psychiatrists were allowed to perform these kinds of therapeutical/counseling sessions on their patients, in the first place. Their methods don’t seem very ethical. I would hope if methods like these were used in the United States that better surveillance would be kept on the patients, whether they are cured or not.