How psychopaths manipulate their victims
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.
written by Donna Andersen • Permalink •
Fighter says:
Rereading your blog tonight and don’t know HOW I missed this post. Just the bit you posted from Hare’s new book gave me a knot in my stomach.
You may have seen this post on my site:
http://cyberpaths.blogspot.com.....ction.html
That said, I know some sociopaths STUDY this mental manipulation stuff. But - what of those who don’t? What’s your theory on how these people know how to do this? Is it brain chemistry or years of interpersonal exploitation? Would be very interested to hear your take on this, Donna.
Friday, 18 August 2006 @ 11:31pm
peggywhoever says:
Hmmm, an old but good article. My S specifically did things to meet my needs/desires and enhance my life i.e., instant hot water (so kids didn’t fight) and landscaping the back yard. He also built me a waterfall, which I had always wanted (everything he did was grandoise, i.e., sending me 3 dozen roses instead of 1 dozen). When I told him that embarassed me, and please just send me a dozen roses from Safeway for $11.99, he ceased sending flowers at all. His game was to get me to invest with him (he played for 3 years) and when he finally figured I wasn’t going to, he turned into the most cruel, heartless, aggressive and hostile person I have ever encountered. He’s now onto a victim who HAS invested with him (silly woman, she’ll lose it all). He’s big into life insurance, and I’m actually afraid that when he gets bored with the new victim, she might just go ‘bye bye’ as his ex-wife had “accidents” but luckily they did not kill her. It is absolutely chilling and frightening to contemplate.
Furthermore, when he had an affair, he actually DID meet a woman on a coast-to-coast airplane ride. He evidently did bond with her, because he had plans (waylaid by her husband eventually) to move her, her car, and all of her possessions across country, plus give her $10k (which of course he got from fraudulent activities).
So, the bonding can be fast and intense.
Wednesday, 26 March 2008 @ 10:12am
OxDrover says:
I will be forever grateful to Dr. Hare and his book “Without Conscience” which was sent to me by a dear friend who had a P son.
My personal copy of Dr. Hare’s book is liberally highlighted with yellow marker and marginal notes. At the time, I only applied this to information to my P-bio-father, but it applies in spade to every P I have known personally.
I will order a copy of the “Sharks” book as well. Maybe I am OCD about learning more about P’s, but at the same time I wonder if my “interest” isn’t like the person who has been shot by someone else, and they buy a gun and go to the range to learn to shoot so that they become enough of an expert shot that they won’t be caught off guard again and shot. I’m not sure if that is a good analogy or not, but I think that the more I know, the more I can grasp, the easier it will be for me to spot the next one in time to not be victimized again.
Maybe if I had been bitten by a snake I would be learning as much as I could about reptiles and their habits and habitats so that I could more easily spot them before I stepped on one.
Wednesday, 26 March 2008 @ 10:56am