Chapter 3

The main focus of chapter 3 is that of the works done by Elliot Barker in Oak Ridge. Elliot worked to cure psychopaths. The psychopaths in Oak Ridge, Elliot believed, were burying their madness. So, he thought that if their madness could be brought to the surface they would no longer be psychopaths. Elliot gave these psychopaths LSD and put them in a padded room, known as The Total Encounter Capsule, naked, so that they could learn to empathize at their rawest point. The treatments seemed to be working. The psychopaths were learning to empathize and interact with one another on a deeper level. But it was soon found out that his treatments didn't work. Elliot's released psychopaths reoffended 80 percent of the time where as others reoffended only 60 percent of the time.

This chapter was extremely interesting to me because I didn't think that psychopaths could be cured of their madness, but while reading I thought that Elliot Barker's methods were actually working. I was surprised to read that their reoffending rates were higher than the average free psychopath. I must watch too much t.v. because this chapter was not gruesome to me at all. Although I am always surprised to hear what the psychopaths have to say about their reasons for killing, and how they just really have absolutely no empathy. I also found it strange that schizophrenics dream in color while psychopaths dream in black and white. I wonder why that is?