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.
kim frederick
sweet-smelling phermones. LOL. Overwhelming testosterone.
behind_blue_eyes
My x-spath did not smell. He was too cold to smell.
myheart
Exspath is a walking paranoid. Very careful about his reputation. This is why eh was private, he didn’t want anybody to know about him and his disfuncional family. He used to think there are guys standing at every corner to kidnap his doughter. He truly would get panic. So as we know they do get panic attack, isn’t that just other way around of not having fear?
Yes he feard for himself and his doughter, but he didn’t care what happens to marriage/relaitonship or for others, he was totally cold in that respect. So it is very selective behaviour.
candy
Spaths (as far as I know from this site DO NOT commit suicide). I think that you all know of my experience but spath went a step further. He pulled that pity ploy on me, but he had no intention of seeing it through.
What he DID do was tell his next victim that he’d taken an over-dose. He said he had collapsed, infront of a police officer (yeah right!) and was taken 30 miles, by ambulance, to hospital.
Now I KNOW that on that particular day he actually DROVE himself to town, no one does that after an overdose. He even went to the trouble of getting/stealing a wrist band to PROOVE it. How twisted is that?
And yes, he would harm anything….animal or human…before he would hurt himself.
As for challenging him…….well he became very defensive when he was backed into a corner. THAT’S when he showed his TRUE colours.
Ox – where are you?
Recovering
Candy my spath eas just the same when he was confronted and he went crazy. I didnt have the smartest spath either. He was a terrible liar.
skylar
Candy,
Ox went out of town to help a cousin with her dying husband.
Your spath sounds like a clown.
I can just imagine him telling this story. He says he went by ambulance but actually drove!! LOL!
Spaths sure can tell stories. My spath has one about landing his gyrocopter on a precipice in the wilderness, and then since there wasn’t enough clearance to take off again, he had to disassemble it and pack it out by foot. LOL! He didn’t even OWN a gyro when this supposedly happened.
They need to have stories because without them, they don’t exist.
kim frederick
There is at least one article in the archives about spaths and suicide. That article suggests that occasionally they do.
There has been acouple of posters here in the past whose X’s did.
But it is rare and it is done out of complete desparation at having lost control….of you, or of me, or of the system, or of whatever. Remember that THE single most important thing to them is power and control. This is the final and ultimate attempt to maintain control. it is the ultimate end-game and is intended to F you up…but to a spath, I guess it’s worth the cost of his own life.
They will occasionally commit suicide in prison, in an attempt to be in control of their own destiny. They won’t give the law the power to decide their fate.
Anyway, the article in the archives is a good one. Check it out.
skylar
Kim, yes some do commit suicide as a last and ultimate FU to the world.
Being story driven characters, they imagine the drama and trauma that their dead bodies will cause.
The other thing I’ve noticed about spaths, is that they are always planning an “exit strategy”. They are always doing evil so they have to plan how they will get away when they are caught. I’m sure all of them contemplate suicide as a possible way out.
The 90 year old man that rents from our friend, A, is a spath. He is mostly harmless now because of his age but he tells stories about being in the CIA and the FBI etc…
He says he keeps a cyanide pill on him so that if he ever has to, he can take his own life.
They are all 2 year-olds, even at 90. What a waste of life.
candy
Sky – that is soooooo ((((((((((((funny))))))))))What planet are they on?! ‘He didn’t even OWN a gyro’
Mine said he was a lorry driver and he never had a lorry!! I rang the company he said that he worked for on the other side of the country…..they had never heard of him! WHY? WHY tell such blatant lies. Wait for this….I asked him how many wheels his lorry had? He couldn’t tell me!. My husband was a lorry driver and he would have told me how many wheels, tyre pressure, tread etc etc in the blink of an eye. It was all fake with spath, but they can only dupe us for so long and then their whole façade slips away.
Thanks for the info about Ox. I often miss posts, so thanks for letting me know she’s ok.
Far – Yep. To be a GOOD liar we need to have a good memory. Spath could not (or would not) remember the lies he told so there was no continuity. He told me his brother was a pilot abroad…..he wasn’t, he works in an office in the UK. Why bother lying about such things? Dumb asses.
behind_blue_eyes
kylar says:
“They are all 2 year-olds, even at 90. What a waste of life.”
Interesting comment as my x-spath’s online profiles are very, very juvenile. However, I did not see any immaturity when I knew him, other that the way he dressed, a 30-something dressing like a teenager.