Psychopath Read Online Free PDF

expecting you to crack this case wide open.  He’s already been on the unit almost three weeks.  Get him to string two words together, and you’re a hero."  He turned on his heels and marched toward the lectern at the front of the room.

t h r e e
     
    The auditorium was filled nearly to capacity.  Ellison explained to Jonah that Canaan Memorial was one of the few places in Vermont where mental health professionals could earn the continuing education credits they needed to keep their licenses.  Social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists from all over the state attended the weekly case conference.
    Jonah listened from a seat in the front row as Paul Plotnik began to present the psychiatric history of nine-year-old Benjamin Herlihey.  After the presentation, Herlihey would be brought in to be interviewed.
    "Benjamin Herlihey is a nine-year-old white male admitted to the locked psychiatric unit on January third of this year," Plotnik read from prepared notes.  "He is the only child born to his father, who works at a local lumber yard, and his mother, who works as a day care provider in the couple’s home.  According to his parents, Benjamin showed worsening symptoms of major depression for nearly three months prior to admission, including lack of appetite with a seventeen-pound weight loss, decreased sleep with early morning awakening, loss of interest in all activities that once brought him pleasure, decreased energy, and intermittent tearfulness."  Plotnik paused, but continued to stare at his notes.  He pushed the tip of his pointer finger into his ear and twirled the fingertip, as if removing ear wax.
    Ellison leaned toward Jonah.  "A nervous habit," he whispered.
    Very nervous, Jonah thought to himself.
    "Benjamin was treated by an outpatient psychiatrist who prescribed him Zoloft at fifty milligrams, without any improvement in symptoms," Plotnik went on.  "The dosage was slowly increased to one hundred milligrams, then to two hundred.  No beneficial results were obtained.  The patient’s symptoms continued to worsen.  Desipramine was added at fifty milligrams each morning.  But despite the combination of medicines, the patient’s energy continued to decline, and his weight continued to fall.  He stopped attending school and became more and more reclusive at home.  By mid-December, Benjamin had become nearly mute, answering yes or no to questions, but offering nothing more.  He began to avoid eye contact.  His outpatient psychiatrist then reasoned, wisely by my estimation, that Benjamin, rather than suffering a major depression, was experiencing a first psychotic break, heralding the onset — in childhood — of paranoid schizophrenia."
    Whispers in the audience spoke to the poor prognosis of early onset schizophrenia.  Major depression, while no cakewalk, was far more treatable.
    Plotnik drove his fingertip inside his ear again, twirled it around, then used it to flip to the next page of his presentation.  "Since his admission to Seven West on January third, the patient has maintained almost complete silence.  He seems, at times, to be distracted, presumably by hallucinations.  He looks up toward the ceiling, as if hearing a voice or seeing a vision.
    "Benjamin has not maintained a normal diet since falling ill, and his anorexic behavior has only worsened on the unit and now places him in metabolic jeopardy.  We are delivering him nutrients by IV, but will need to place a feeding tube within days to ensure his survival.  His parents have already consented to the surgery.  We plan to initiate electroconvulsive treatment immediately thereafter, in hopes of impacting Benjamin’s psychosis.
    "Psychodynamically, it seems relevant that Benjamin’s father deserted the family with no notice three years ago, almost to the day, that his son’s symptoms began.  Mr. Herlihey stayed away four months, refusing all contact with his family, then reuniting with them just as suddenly.  He did not