Snakes in Suits—When Psychopaths Go to Work is a new book published by Dr. Robert Hare, the international expert on psychopaths, and Dr. Paul Babiak, an industrial-organizational psychologist. Although the book is primarily about psychopaths in the corporate world, it contains important information for anyone who is dealing with one of these predators.
Chapters 3 and 4 explain how psychopaths manipulate their victims, and it’s absolutely chilling.
Hare and Babiak describe a three-phase process psychopaths use in their parasitic approach to life. This isn’t a process psychopaths have to plan, they do it naturally. Here’s how it goes, according to the authors:
- First, they assess the value of individuals to their needs, and identify their psychological strengths and weaknesses.
- Second, they manipulate the individuals (now potential victims) by feeding them carefully crafted messages, while constantly using feedback from them to build and maintain control. Not only is this an effective approach to take with most people, it also allows psychopaths to talk their way around and out of any difficulty quickly and effectively if confronted or challenged.
- Third, they leave the drained and bewildered victims when they are bored or otherwise through with them.
Psychological game
As a result of the manipulation, the psychopath establishes a “psychopathic bond” with the victim. Here’s how Hare and Babiak summarize the manipulation:
The psychopath’s psychological game involves analyzing the individual’s expectations and desires, and then reflecting them in a psychological mask that is so convincing the person bonds with him or her. This bonding can take place very quickly, even during the space of one cross-country airplane ride. There are two payoffs: the psychopath wins the immediate game by gaining the person’s trust, and the victim, now in the grip of the psychopath’s power, will soon give up whatever the psychopath requests or demands.
If you’ve been victimized by a psychopath, you’re probably trying to figure out how it happened. Read Snakes in Suits, especially chapters 3 and 4.You’ll find your answers.
Lovefraud mention
Snakes in Suits includes a sidebar about Lovefraud.com in the chapter about personal self-defense. I greatly appreciate the reference.
Another note—although I draw on the work of Dr. Robert Hare in Lovefraud.com, I’ve chosen to use the term “sociopath” in place of his use of the word “psychopath.” The reason is that most people assume a psychopath is a deranged serial killer, which may prevent them from realizing that the spouse, relative or coworker who is making them miserable may have the personality disorder. My purpose is simply to enhance communication.
Hope to heal:
Yeah, it’s the pits. I have never had any damage, thank God, but I have had a tornado hit very, very close to me…only about a mile away. They hit around here a lot. I am also praying for all who have been affected.
The storms are finally moving out. It’s only been nine hours now!!
That’s good news eb9. It was just raining here all day long… the garden should grow like mad now 🙂
Hopefully, we are DONE with this nasty weather for at least a little while. It would be swell to be able to enjoy the long weekend with some sunshine.
Speaking of long weekends… I will be away for a few days and won’t have internet access where I am going. I hope everyone has a very nice holiday.
eb, thanks for the good news about the storms ending. there’s a little bit of worry in the back of my mind until I know it’s over for my LF friends. Storms freak me out. I’ve lived on properties with lots of trees and the fear is always there.
my first thought upon opening my eyes this morning was: when the spath sees that we want something; they EXPLOIT, EXPLOIT, EXPLOIT!
I suspect this is why i do not dare to desire now, which leaves me in about the same place i was in when i was young; i did not ‘want, what i could not have’ (from a lyric from a song sung by Sinnead O’Connor.)
may the guts of every last one of them putrefy and spill on the ground.
One Joy,
yeah, me too. That’s a huge problem for me, I’m always on guard, knowing that the envious ones will target my desires just to see me lose. Being surrounded by spaths is hard, it’s like living in a war zone.
I was writing to someone, explaining the ways that I would cope when I was with spath and she said, “Wow, skylar, it’s like your’re describing the coping mechanisms of a political prisoner. I say political prisoner, because this is a prisoner who is innocent and doesn’t deserve to be imprisoned.”
That’s when my mind went back to “The Shawshank Redemption” and the character of Andy DuPree.
sky – i wonder if you could leave your family. could you even imagine it? let some light into your life. you are surely in a prison where you are. you have more freedom of movement and thought than before, but there is still a cage.
it is a huge system challenging risk…to be free.
OneJoy,
I don’t see them much. I’m getting closer to severing the emotions as well. It’s like a rope with a little notch in it, coming unraveled.
sky – i am sitting down to work and this thought crossed my mind: when we do things in spite of their existence and prevalence in our lives, and not to spite their existence and prevalence then we leave the dance.
to be empathetic and be in the world, to take the risks to ‘be’ again is a challenge. much to do to get there. to risk the lack of safety.
when i think about the risks and the lack of safety i sometimes wish i could live in a world where its okay to have this light, but HUGE toolbox of love and compassion for the non disordered, and a gun for the disordered. in this tool box there is also a switch that clicks immediately when i smell the disordered; and in deep wisdom, i shoot and kill them.
Hope to heal:
Yes, I survived the storms. Thank God.
We will miss you on here. Enjoy the holiday weekend. I think we are supposed to get some sun.