Butterfly Skin (32 page)

I wonder why he never asks where he can read my stuff? Is he trying not to make me feel too important?

Shit, why did I say that? Now I’ll have to explain what the interview’s for and what it’s about. Maybe it’s time I told him I’m
that
Ksenia Ionova? A successful professional, an up-and-coming journalist, and also the producer and blogger of the “Moscow Psycho” site?

AT SEVEN IN THE EVENING LA BELLE CHOCOLATIÈRE
café on October Square is crammed as usual and it’s hard to find a table. Ksenia’s feeling nervous, after all, it’s the first time she’s ever seen a real live psychotherapist. Medium height, well dressed, quite young. Could be some friend of Olya’s. Entirely her style: the modern Moscow businesswoman. Only dressed less formally, and it obviously doesn’t take half the evening for her face to thaw out after the working day. How shall I address you, formally by name and patronymic? Just Tatyana is fine.

It’s the first time she’s seen a real live therapist, should she ask some kind of personal question? Doctor, why do I like to be hurt? Oh no, some other time, today I’m working.

Switch on the dictaphone. Check the recording level, make there isn’t too much noise. One, two, three. Now just a moment – no, everything seems to be all right. Let’s get started, okay?

(Extracts from the article “Psycho: the psychologist’s view” published on the Moscow Psycho site)

Most serial killers belong to the class of sociopathic personalities or sociopaths. These are individuals in whom one of the most important aspects of personality is defective: they are incapable of understanding that there are certain things you must not do, not because you will be punished, but because they cause suffering to others. In everyday language, they simply have no conscience, and this is not merely a metaphor, but a sad reality. Strangely enough, this state of affairs causes suffering to the sociopaths as well as the people around them: sociopaths are not capable of understanding other people emotionally, they are not capable of getting in touch with other people’s feelings and sympathizing with them, and so they are terribly lonely and unhappy within themselves. When they kill, they do not perceive their victim as a person of flesh and blood, with his or her own feelings and desires, for them the victims are no more than figures out of their own fantasies. At the same time, a sociopath doesn’t perceive himself as a living individual, but as a kind of abstract, powerful figure, the bearer of might and authority, an abstract aggressor who in fact is often endowed with the features of the aggressor whom he encountered in his childhood. As a rule, sociopaths are people whose childhood was devoid of emotional attachments and love. There was simply no one from whom they could learn to feel compassion, because they themselves never received an adequate measure of that compassion.

Sometimes killers have a tendency toward dissociation, that is, they have several personalities living inside them and, in principle, they might not even suspect each other’s existence. This is a subject they love to exploit in the movies: one of the classic plots is Hitchcock’s
Psycho
, the story of a man who thought he was his own dead mother and killed girls in a hotel, acting out that role.

The reasons for this kind of split personality have still not been studied adequately, but we can say with certainty that it often happens to people whose childhood involved some kind of severe suffering or serious psychological trauma. If the child is unable to cope with this himself, or he does not receive enough support from the people around him, then at some difficult moment his psyche attempts to deal with what is happening by splitting the personality, passing on the bad experience to someone else and starting over with a clean sheet. I must emphasize that dissociation is the result of intense suffering and serious pain. As a rule, these people cannot remember the trauma and they themselves cannot understand why they do certain things, for instance, why they become killers.

But then that’s a separate question – the distinction between sociopaths with dissociative features and dissociative individuals with a sociopathological component to their personality. It is of very definite importance when it comes to expert psychiatric testimony in court, but it doesn’t change the way we regard what happens from a practical point of view.

Maybe I suppress part of my childhood experiences too? thinks Ksenia. Though I don’t think so, I think I remember everything. But then – how can you check? Maybe I should ask her to explain one of my dreams? Yesterday I woke up and all I could remember was one phrase: “When I’m called, I’ll come.” Who’s going to call me, and where to?

“As far as I know, in Russia most psychotic killers are declared sane, is that true?” Ksenia asks and finishes her coffee.

“To be quite honest, I’d rather not answer that question for the record, but if you’re interested, I can tell you why it happens. The way I see it, of course. It’s not even a matter of public opinion saying we ought to shoot these monsters. It’s just that psychiatrists are only too well aware that it’s possible to escape from hospital. That patients are usually only kept in high-security facilities for seven years – any longer is forbidden by law – and then transferred to the standard security regime, where the patients aren’t actually guarded at all. They know you can leave the hospital when you’re declared to be well. In short, there is absolutely no guarantee that these people will not kill again. If you have to take a sin on your soul, better take responsibility for a wrong diagnosis than for further victims. Mosgas, Chikatilo, and all the most famous serial killers – of course, they’re all mentally ill, people with very serious disorders and a specific diagnosis. But they were declared sane and executed. And, to be quite honest, I can understand my colleagues for putting their names to that opinion.”

“You mean these people can’t be cured?” asks Ksenia, thinking that she would like to be like this woman: to understand killers with her mind, have all the answers pigeon-holed, explain all the reasons, know everything in the books, but not feel it with her own lacerated skin, her own heart.

(Extracts from the article “Psycho: the psychologist’s view” published on the Moscow Psycho site)

Many cases are known in which psychotherapy has helped such people to cope with their problems. But it has to be admitted that the case of serial killers lies in the realm of psychiatry and not psychotherapy: the transition from fantasies to real actions is usually the boundary beyond which the killer’s personality changes irreversibly. But, of course, we must understand quite definitely that most sociopaths and individuals with multiple personalities are not psychotic killers. And neither are people who are obsessed by sadistic fantasies. In themselves, thoughts and fantasies do not make a person into a criminal – and in these cases the timely help of a therapist can be both appropriate and effective. The literature includes cases of individuals who went to therapy with an obsessive desire to kill. Many of them have managed to get rid of their own nightmares, others have at least managed not to commit any real crimes. I would like to use your site to appeal to people like that and tell them they will feel better if they can talk about their fantasies with a therapist.

“But surely a therapist should tell the police if someone who might become a murderer comes to him?” Ksenia asks.

“Well, you see, Ksenia, confidentiality is one of the fundamental conditions of a therapist’s work. There are cases, very rare ones, when a therapist has the right to break this rule. For instance, if a child says that he or she is being systematically abused – then the therapist should inform the authorities, in order to protect this child and other children. But if someone comes of his own accord and talks about his problems, including his fantasies, his nightmares and obsessions, then he can be certain that no one but his therapist will hear about it.”

I guess I’d be a good client, thinks Ksenia. I wouldn’t hide anything, I don’t have anything to hide. But then, I’m not likely to go into therapy, no matter what Maya Lvova says – after all, I’m perfectly happy. Especially just recently, when I have someone to talk with about what really matters to me.

She finishes her coffee and asks her final question:

“But what does the therapist feel, talking to a potential killer? How about you, Tatyana, wouldn’t you feel disgusted or afraid?

“It’s our job, Ksenia. If a man came to me with fantasies about killing little girls, as a woman and a mother I would feel loathing and anger. But as a professional, I would empathize, because I understand perfectly well that such fantasies derive from the experience of suffering. The therapist’s attitude must always be based on a compassionate approach – that’s another condition of our work.”

(Extracts from the article “Psycho: the psychologist’s view” published on the Moscow Psycho site)

In conclusion, let me emphasize once again: an analysis of the causes of such crimes can in no way serve as an argument in favor of a “soft” approach to the killers. The understanding that so-called “psychos” are also human beings who suffer and perhaps need help should not be confused with a desire to justify them, yet alone to glorify them. Society has to be protected against such individuals, no matter how well we might understand the degree of their own personal suffering.