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.
behind_blue_eyes
eb92044;
I do not know if my x-spath was raised on a council estate. All I know is that his father left him when he was a child and he was raised by his mother and did not have any money growing up. But he was bright enough to get into very good schools and I and this was one reason why I was attracted to him.
My x-spath is about 6 years older than yours, so their experiences of Liverpool would be similar.
The one I met online looks so much like my x-spath they could easily be brothers:
Same height, build, eye and hair colour, high hair line, small willy (had to get that in). Only 4 years age difference.
Yes, my experience with the x-spath set off a red flag that kept me away from this other one.
behind_blue_eyes
” I think we all get there once we are just so sick and tired our brains hurt from trying to analyze them…”
The problem is they give you so much to think about.
hens
_blue eyes_ LoL – sometimes I think the bigger the willy the redder the flag….
myheart
Hmmm…. body smell. That is surprising, exspath, doesn’t have body smell, I am very smell sensitive. And I was totally surprised, he had no breath smell, never used deodrant, just plainly no smell, head to toe…. Too weird.
Is it genetic??????
skylar
myheart, yes we have all noticed their lack of smell.
Mine actually smelled good without bathing or deoderant. Really! Isn’t that strange. But think about it, don’t babies smell good too? I think their brains are sufficiently infantile that it prevents them from sweating. Their nervous system is like dead, they have no fear, or emotions so they don’t perspire. That’s just my theory.
But here’s the clincher: I was with mine for 25 years and the first 15 or so he smelled good, but the last 10 years he started to smell like something from hell. His clothes smelled so bad that the lady at the laundry mat commented that they didn’t seem like they had come clean. They still stunk after being washed with detergent and bleach.
I don’t know if he had started to use drugs or what, I’m just noticing that there was a huge difference from smelling great to reaking when he got older.
Eva
Oh my~ mine was normal in this sense: had his peculiar smell like everybody. It’s true they don’t have psysical reactions to fear, stress, etc, and they don’t sweet in those cases. But if he did exercise he sweat like everybody.
Louise
Wow, everyone. This smell thing is interesting to me! The guy I had been with before him had strong body odors and mouth odors and this guy doesn’t drink a drop of alcohol or do drugs so not sure where it came from; he showered every day. Sad, because it totally turned me off. Then I meet the spath with no smell and I guess it really turned me on. It was awesome. But…I did see him sweat. I would see his clothes wet under his arms, but he never smelled. Hmmmm…
Louise
I just Googled body odor and realized that diet plays a huge role in our body odor; makes sense. And now it makes more sense about my spaths lack of body odor. He did not eat red meat and ate a lot of fruit. According to this site, eating red meat is the #1 cause of body odor. So along with all the alcohol killing everything, I can see why he smelled great! Too bad…I wish he had smelled like shite.
behind_blue_eyes
“Hens says:
_blue eyes_ LoL ”“ sometimes I think the bigger the willy the redder the flag”.”
Hens, remember one of the several truly bizarre aspects of my relationship with my x-spath was that I “met” him online 9 months before I met him in person.
By “met,” I saw a video he posted on X-tube. I did not know his real name nor did I contact him.
I saved the video because he was attractive for seeming so “normal,” right down to a rather un-pornographic willy!
Thus, in my own warped sense of things due to stress and depression, the image of what I thought this guy would be like became my vision for what I was looking for in somebody: “next door” type normal.
hens
So, what does EVIL smell like?