I recently had clinical contact with a client who left me with the unusually strong, immediate impression of “schemer,” “slick,” “full of crap.” He was instantly, aggressively ingratiating—less, I felt, from insecurity, as from ulterior motives, as if he were angling, at the outset, for an edge.
I had the uncomfortable feeling I get around intrusive salesmen who leave you feeling like an “object” from whom to extract a sale and commission.
I should mention that he was glib. Glibness is a trait often associated with certain sociopaths. My client was so glib, as a matter of fact, that for the first time in a long while the word “glib” actually popped into my head.
When I say “glib,” I don’t mean just fast-talking, which he was. He was shallow, too. And for me, the combination of smooth, fast talking, underlain by shallowness, really captures “glib.”
He was something of a schemer, and it was fascinating to observe him deny or dismiss rife evidence of his historical deceptiveness, abusiveness and double-standards. And he did so with a striking lack of shame, and with much audacity, along with irritation (arrogantly conveyed) to have to even deign to respond to the history.
Now I’d like to shift gears (abruptly), and say something about the psychopath’s (or sociopath’s) alleged “look,” or “stare,” which has been described anecdotally in the literature. Its most obvious form is characterized by a certain crazed intensity (note some of the existing photos of Ted Bundy, and other serial killers).
There are also, I suggest, other, subtler forms of this look. In any case what this “look” transmits (in any of its forms) is something elementally predatory. It has an evaluatively predatory quality.
I suspect that many of you have had the experience of being watched in this way?
It’s more than a feeling of being scrutinized, because all of us scrutinize each other, and clients should be scrutinizing their therapists.
It is more, I think, the quality, or motive, of the scrutiny—again, a predatory aspect that engenders the experience of feeling invaded, and “sized up,” “measured” for ulterior purposes.
At bottom, this is a type of “look” that leaves one feeling watched, studied as an “object.” One experiences the “watcher” as if he or she is calculating, “How much can I have my way with this person? How susceptible is this person to my present interests in him or her?”
My client had this “look.”
He was a “watcher,” and as he watched me, I often had the disconcerting sense that he was less interested in what I had to say, or what I was saying, than in using the time I was speaking to further his evaluation of my vulnerability.
This feeling with, experience of someone, can be a signal. It can signal that something predatory is brewing, or occurring.
I’ve called this the “feel” of a sociopath, because sociopaths sometimes (not always) can stir-up this sensation in those whose paths they’ve crossed, or lives they’ve entered. To be sure, not all sociopaths evoke this experience; but some do, and it can be an uncomfortable, and not easily articulated experience. Depending on the circumstances, it can even feel flatteringly seductive (if still uncomfortable).
Take, for instance, a blind/first-date scenario, in which the exploitative-minded individual approvingly, hungrily, invasively and audaciously sizes-up his date, leaving her feeling flattered (hungrily desired) while at the same time uneasy?
This “sizing up,” “measuring” process too often belies not a hunger for love, and connection, but of acquisition, possession and/or conquest.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
I got to thinking too about another time I saw “the look” in the eyes of a tiger. My living history group had “set up shop” at the zoo grounds in Little Rock, AR. and in the morning I got up after we had spent thenight in the zoo, well before the gates were opened, and I yoked up my young yearling oxen and was walking them around and I passed by the tiger enclosure. It was one of those with the big deep moat around it and the tigers were up on a sort of hillside where they were actually above the place where the people stood on the other side of the moat to watch them. When the big male saw my calves he immediately went into STALKING MODE and the look of the predatory cat was there. \
He was wild caught and I imagine he was the only cat there that had the training as well as the instinct, because the other tigers all just lay around, but he started stalking my calves.
I looked at the moat and I could see he would glance at it too, he was calculating whether or not he should try to leap it. I got the calves and we took a hike quickly away from the tiger enclosure, but he followed us with his eyes and then stalked until he could no longer see us or we him.
THAT LOOK, the same look in my son’s eyes, my p-bio father’s eyes, the eyes of the PREDATORY CAT with its eye on the prey. Maybe not all Ps have that same exact look, but I’ve seen it in those two, and also in my mother’s eyes when she was enraged at me. It chills the body and soul all the way to the BONE. It is nothing I will ever forget.
The look that conveys DETERMINED INTENT in the tiger, but evil and determined intent in the human predator.
Justabouthealed, your ex sizing you up in the hotel room reminded me of that psychopath in No Country For Old Men. It sounds so creepy.
I do believe when we have been traumatized, it is healing to relive the incident with an empowered ending. I often have dreams about my abusive parents where I’m standing up to them and telling them what the consequences will be if they ever lay a finger on me or say anything derogatory toward me. There is a type of trauma work that has you alternating a really good feeling in your body with reliving the trauma while having that good feeling. Then you do whatever you were not able to do before–kick, scream, set limits, etc. I think the name of the book is “Eye of the Tiger” but I’m not sure, that talks about that type of trauma work.
When we have had so much abuse and trauma in our life, we can forget what it is like to feel good. But if we can somehow have some positive happy feelings, we can look at the bad experiences in a different way and heal them. I think it is SO important for all of us to do some things that make us laugh and smile, and to relax once in a while. This will make the healing go faster. So many of us are programmed for pain, and it is a major challenge to allow good feelings to come in. Life is made up of good and bad, NOT just the bad. We all deserve to have some peace and laughter amidst the tears, my friends.
I remember feeling afraid to make eye contact with him and that anything I said was childish, uninformed, when in fact I am an intelligent and interesting person. I was awkward in his presence. The ONE time he hugged me seems, in retrospect, like a clinic on the sociopath and affection – I felt as if I were embracing an inanimate object. He wasn’t even breathing.
One would think that with just these observations I would be over him. How lucky am I to have a manipulative relationship with a narcissistic mother to fruitlessly reconcile through a sociopathic man? This site is the cheese to my therapist’s cracker. Thank you all for posting.
I felt the feeling too, of embracing an inanimate object. Kissing nothing. Even at the beginning I joked with my friends “I think he may have been born without a soul”, not really supposing it to be true…at the time.
I understand the feeling that someone’s just too slick, based on what they say and how they say it. I’m afraid to judge someone psychopathic based on whether they’re observant of others or not. We can note that someone’s observant, but attaching motive to those observations isn’t appropriate without a bit more information.
Mr. Becker had that information. He knew some of his client’s history, and he was being schmoozed. Within that framework, his client’s watchful gaze had to be disconcerting.
Most people aren’t particularly observant, P or not. Of the minority of people who are observant, many are quite decent.
Of the people I know who make snap judgments, most are quite mistaken. In spite of this, they stick by these first impressions, justifying them through harsh interpretations of their target’s innocent behavior. As much as I want to get better at assessing character, I don’t want to become cruel.
I know I’ve been too patient, too forgiving and too willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. I’m trying to change, but I don’t want to swing too far the other way.
One of the things that I never liked about my ex were his eyes. They are almost black and slightly buggy, and conveyed NOTHING. Eye contact always felt a little off, or barely there.
But I let the WORDS coming out of his mouth drown out any misgivings. I rationalized his eyes, by realizing that his sister who I really like, also has that buggy overactive thyroid look.
Over the years I noticed that there were almost no pictures of us together. I did look back at some of them recently and the LOOK on his face – for the camera mind you – is just chilling. Even our wedding photo he is posing with a look that is like the cat that swallowed the canary.
Two of my adult children are currently in a work environment with someone who we KNOW is lying (two different work places).
While all liars are not PSN’s all PSN”s are liars. In my daughters case, I twigged on it early and have been accurately PREDICTING what the guy will do next. (go after her job, undermine her, schmooze with those that can help him etc, set her up to look bad, bully).
This guy has managed four months in a work envirnoment that requires a police check, having presented NO ID, claiming he lost his wallet, etc etc. The clientele at the job is at risk street kids, and yet unbelievably, the staff just LOVE this guy, he has managed to ignore the usual procedure and charm his way in, hired on the spot, no reference checks etc.
My daughter felt uneasy when she first started working with him, but was soon charmed. Since then his mask has slipped just enough for her to see. From what I can tell he likes it like that. She knows, and watches, as everyone else is still “charmed”.
What I am getting at is, once we have these diagnostic tools, although not infallible, they help us be on guard. And they do give themselves away… the SPN’s if we can hold back our natural willingness to accept and give the benefit of the doubt to strangers, until they have demonstrated their sincerity or trustworthiness.
I have encouraged my daughter to persoanlly check his references. Any bets out there on what she finds?
Peace to all,
“This guy has managed four months in a work environment that requires a police check, having presented NO ID, claiming he lost his wallet, etc etc. The clientèle at the job is at risk street kids, and yet unbelievably, the staff just LOVE this guy, he has managed to ignore the usual procedure and charm his way in, hired on the spot, no reference checks etc.”
Huge red flag!!! One S and one N I have personally had dealings with both pulled off that exact gambit in church settings. They quickly rose quickly to leadership positions without once getting a reference check. They are both currently considered to be “canonized saints” by their church leadership. In both cases those background checks would have shown criminal assaults and histories of employment problems.
Get the background investigation early, before the organization’s leadership becomes to “invested” in the N/P/S’s “wonderfulness”. The more invested the leadership becomes in his false persona, the less willing they will be to respond appropriately to factual information.
Sounds to me that the “management” who are supposed to assure that a background check is done are DROPPING THE BALL.
RED FLAG for sure!
Is there some way this lack of background checkk can be done at this point? Or upper management notified? Sounds like a child molester or exconvict to me….RED FLAG!!! HORNS!!! SIRENS!!!!
Stargazer said: “Whenever we hugged, his hug had the quality of lack of feeling. Hard to describe. There was no emotion in it.”
SG, I know that hug. I tried to explain it to someone by saying that his hug lacked a presentness. It’s like he stood there with his arms around me mechanically, waiting for the hug to be over. That is the way the hugs were near the end. I think they might have been better at the beginning, but I don’t specifically remember their quality then.
I thought these things happened because he really didn’t like me. Although he deceived me through his actions, he never lied to me and told me that he loved me, and I am so grateful for that.
The s/p in my life was VERY cozy but not very affectionate, unless he was trying to hook me. Has any one else experienced this trait/dichotomy?
I think that the “feel” of an s/p is often a tickle or a sensation in us noting the lack of feeling in the s/p, the lack of insight, the s/p’s lack of recognition of the other person and her/his experience. I used to plead with the s/p to be more introspective. It was like talking to a wall.
What a great thread!
I am very familiar with that look. It is so strange to read this, I recently had a dream about the s-ex. In the dream he was trying to sweet talk me into getting back together. He kept saying I was his only one, blah, blah. Then something inside occured to me. A voice said “watch his eyes when he says I love you” so I focused on his eye and it was like a revelation. When he said ” I love you” there was NOTHING. Lizard like glassy eyes, void of anything. Chilling. I woke up crying.
In waking life I know for a fact that the s-ex was “observing” me for a long time, before we met. He in fact even told me. I used to work at this gallery and apparently he was there on some business. He said that he was looking at me and I shut the door on him. He was probably a staring creep to me at the time and I shut the door for privacy. He wrote it off as me being stand off-ish. He was just waiting for the right moment, a moment of weakness or off-guard to pounce. Which he did.
Later when we went out, he would grab my hands and stare at me with this pretend intensity. I say pretend because it was like practiced it from a book and it did not come from the heart. The eyes were unmoving and lacking life. It was f***g creepy, it made me really uncomfortable.