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the plethysmographic test?’
    â€˜Precisely.’
    â€˜It’s not as if aversive plethysmography has received unanimous approval,’ she said.
    â€˜Here it works,’ answered Xavier firmly.
    She felt him stiffen. Whenever anyone spoke of aversion therapy, Diane thought of A Clockwork Orange. Aversion therapy meant associating a recording of a deviant fantasy – visions of rape, naked children and so on – with very unpleasant or even painful sensations: electric shock or inhaling ammonia, for example, instead of the pleasant sensations the patient usually associated with the fantasy. Systematic repetition of the experience was supposed to produce a lasting change in the subject’s behaviour. A sort of Pavlovian conditioning, in other words, as tested on sex abusers and paedophiles in certain countries, like Canada.
    Xavier was playing with the button of the pen sticking out of his chest pocket.
    â€˜I know that many practitioners in this country are sceptical about the behaviour therapy approach. It is a practice that has its roots in the Anglo-Saxon countries and the Pinel Insitute in Montreal, which is where I came from. We have obtained remarkable results. But obviously your French colleagues find it difficult to acknowledge such an empirical method, particularly one from the other side of the Atlantic. They fault it for overlooking such fundamental notions as the unconscious, the superego and the implementation of impulses in repression strategies…’
    Behind his glasses his eyes were gazing at Diane with an exasperating indulgence.
    â€˜Many people in this country still favour an approach that takes the findings of psychoanalysis into greater consideration, which involves reshaping the deepest layers of a personality. In so doing they overlook the fact that the total absence of guilt or emotion displayed by major psychopathic perverts will always cause their efforts to fail. With this type of patient, only one thing works: reconditioning.’ His voice flowed over the word like a stream of icy water. ‘One must make the subject responsible for his treatment, thanks to an entire range of rewards and punishments, and thus create conditioned behaviour. We also conduct risk assessments at the request of the judicial or medical authorities,’ he continued, stopping outside yet another door made of Securit glass.
    â€˜Haven’t the majority of studies shown that most of these assessments do not serve much purpose?’ asked Diane. ‘Some of them maintain that, half the time, psychiatric risk assessments are wrong.’
    â€˜So they say,’ conceded Xavier. ‘But more often than not it turns out the risk has been overevaluated. If there is any doubt, in our evaluation report we systematically advise continuing detention or prolonging hospitalisation. And then,’ he added, with a smile of absolute fatuousness, ‘these evaluations correspond to a deeply rooted need in our societies, Mademoiselle Berg. The courts ask us to resolve a moral dilemma in their place, a dilemma which in all truth no one is capable of resolving : how can one be sure that the measures taken with regard to a particular dangerous individual will meet the needs required for the protection of society, and yet not infringe upon the basic rights of that individual? No one has an answer to this question. Therefore the courts pretend to believe that psychiatric evaluations are reliable. No one is fooled, of course. But it allows the judicial machine, which is constantly threatened with obstruction, to go on turning, while maintaining the illusion that judges are wise people and that they make informed decisions – something which, I might add in passing, is the greatest lie of all the lies on which our democratic societies are founded.’
    A new black box was fitted into the wall, much more sophisticated than the previous one. It contained a little screen and sixteen buttons