Notes

Snakes in Suits – Notes
Psychopaths have a profound inability to experience empathy and complete range of emotions including fear. The most reliable instrument for the assessment of Psychopathy is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-revised PCL-R.
Psychopaths commit a greater number and variety of crimes than do other criminals. Their crimes tend to be more violent than those of other criminals and their general behavior more controlling aggressive threatening and abusive. Predatory in nature.
Psychopath’s recidivate at a much higher rate and so much earlier than other criminals.
Psychopath contribute to only 1% of the population.
Psychopaths are without conscience and incapable of empathy guilt or loyalty to anyone but themselves.
Sociopathy is not a formal psychiatric condition. It refers to patterns of attitudes and behaviors that are considered antisocial and criminal by society at large, but are seen as normal or necessary by the subculture or social environment in which they developed.

Mark of Sanity:
- Lacked insight
- Lacking remorse and shame
- Unreliable
- Consummate liars
- Insincere although often appearing to be very sincere
- Unable to feel intensely any of the emotions that others experience, except perhaps primitive or proto-emotions such as anger, frustration and rage.
- Psychopaths come across as having a superficial charm and good intelligence.
- They appear normal, sane and in control.
- Language and emotional components of thought are not properly integrated, a condition called “semantic aphasia”.
Psychopaths are motivated and have a talent for reading people.
Come across as having excellent oral skills.
They are known for their ability to don many masks, change who they are, depending on the person with whom they are interacting. Social chameleons.
Some do not have enough social or communicative skill or education to interact successfully with others, relying instead on threats coercion, intimidation and violence to dominate others to get what they want.
Personality disorder is not the same as a mental-illness.
Personality disorder has a limited range of stereotyped “solutions that he or she applies to most of the problems encountered in life.

Ten personality disorders recognized by psychologists: including narcissistic, histrionic, etc.

Narcissistic personality disorder involves an excessive need for admiration and a sense of superiority among other traits. Displaying a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, sense of entitlement, and lack of empathy.
First they assess the value of individuals to their needs, and identify their psychological strengths and weaknesses. Second they manipulate the individuals by feeding them carefully crafted messages constantly using feedback from them to build and maintain control. Third they leave the drained and bewildered victims when they are bored or otherwise through with them.
Psychopaths like to play games with people, on the lookout to swindle or scam, identifying targets, assessing prey, some psychopaths are aggressive, opportunistic predators that will take advantage of almost anyone they meet.

Psychopaths search for easier routes to the same ends. Many manage to graduate and obtain professional credentials, in most cases it’s done through cheating, getting others to do their work, and generally “working the system.” Their need for stimulation can lead to thrill-seeking behavior.
Nomadic lifestyle of many psychopaths, the search for multiple sex partners. Psychopathy is characterized by casual sexual relationships that are devoid of genuine, long-term emotional and personal attachments to partners. Frequent liaisons, the use of sex as a weapon, and the callous treatment of intimates are common features of the psychopathic individuals both male and female.

If challenged or caught in a lie, psychopaths are not embarrassed. Abandonment is most often abrupt, “just disappears one day.”
Some may even take the time to mimic emotions so they can better manipulate their victims.
“Emotional Poverty”
Chronically irresponsible in all aspects of life.
Psychopaths have many short-term relationships over the course of their lives.
Don’t have practicable long-term career or life goals.
Exhibit impulsivity, poor behavioral controls and low frustration tolerance.
Psychopaths need greater stimulation than most other people in order to feel anything.
Your ability to recognize psychopathic behavior is increased if you are not seen as valuable or a threat to the psychopath and therefore of little interest. The return of investment is not there for them.
Psychopaths have the deserved reputation of being good judges of the personalities of others and have the uncanny ability to project the most effective persona depending on the situation, to get what they want.

Psychopath agenda during assessment phase:
- Deciding your utility or value to them
- Figuring out inner workings of your personality
- Focused efforts on building a close personal relationship on which later manipulations will occur.
- Persona gives a picture of traits and characteristics you value in yourself. Your persona may reveal insecurities or weaknesses you wish to minimize or hide from view. Psychopath will gently test the inner strengths and needs that are part of your private self and eventually build a personal relationship with you by communication through words and deeds.
1 Reinforcing someone’s persona is simple, yet powerful, influence technique especially if communicated in a convincing, and charming manner.
Unfortunately many people we deal with in our personal and professional lives are so self-absorbed and narcissistic that they rarely see our persona because of the preoccupation they have with their own. Finding someone who pays attention to us, who appreciates or actually “sees” us is refreshing, it validates who we are and makes us feel special.
2. Subtly through clever banter the psychopath begins to share bits of personal information seemingly letting down his or her guard with us. These conversations resonate with you because someone is sharing personal details that reflect values, beliefs, and issues similar to your own. The psychopath second message is “I am just like you.”
3. Having parts of your private self-understood and accepted by someone means you can relax, let your guard down, and begin to trust that this person is different, he or she may like you for who you really are behind your own mask or persona. Happily and with relief, you conclude that the psychopath will not pose a psychological threat, in effect, the third message is “Your secrets are safe with me.” Safety or security is one of our most basic psychophysical needs.
Excerpt: Females can use sex-role tools. Cathy learned when she was very young that sexuality with all its attendant yearnings and pains, jealousies and taboos, is the most disrobing impulse humans have. Because the subject was unmentionable and unmentioned, everyone concealed that little hell in himself, while publicly pretending it did not exist – and when he was caught in it he was completely helpless. Cathy learned that by manipulated and use of this one part of people she could gain and keep power over nearly everyone. It was at once a weapon and a threat. It was irresistible. And since blind helplessness seems never to have fallen on Cathy, it is probable that she had very little of the impulse herself and indeed felt a contempt for those who did.
4. I am the perfect friend, lover, partner for you. Psychopath uses glib verbal and social skills to build a firm reputation in your mind, one that includes strengths you wish you had and weaknesses you understand. This psychological bond capitalizes on your inner personality, holding out the promise of greater depth and possibly intimate and offering a relationship that is special, unique, equal-forever.

What separates psychopathy from normal bonding is: The personality you are bonding with doesn’t really exist. It was built on lies, carefully woven together to trap you.
Victims of psychopaths rarely report them to authorities or to their friends because of the same they feel for being conned.


Affinity groups, religious, political or social groups in which all members share common values or beliefs are particularly attractive to psychopaths because of the collective trust that members of these groups have in one another. Common belief systems allow people who may be very different in many other aspects of their lives to find common ground for social interaction.
Both male and female psychopathic behaviors are shaped by sex-role stereotypes cultivated by society. The same underlying personality structure may find different behavioral and social expression. Although the process of socialization fails to embed in the psyche of psychopaths, the network of inner controls we refer to collectively as conscience, it nevertheless makes them aware of society’s expectations about sex roles, and what is expected of them as men and women. They effectively use these tools as potent tools for manipulation.
Building power base, when considering how people influence each other to get things done in organizations it’s important to consider the role of power. One important trait is called informal power which is the ability to influence what is going on without being given the official ability or authority to do so. Informal leaders typically have more ability to influence the operations of organization.

Dark Triad of Personalities
- Machiavellianism: cynicism and manipulation of others exploit a wide range of duplicitous tactics to achieve their self-interested goals
- Psychopathy
- Subclinical Psychopathy: cold emotion, interpersonal manipulation, impulsive thrill-seeking, and a tendency to engage in antisocial behavior.
Secrecy also helped corporate cons to reinforce the bonds they built with others. Telling someone a secret implies a level of trust that cannot help but raise expectations of friendship and respect.
Narcissistic managers, in particular, tend to rise to management positions in organizations in disproportionately large numbers.



Inability to act without aggression
Inability to be modest
Inability to accept blame
Inability to tell the truth
Inability to act predictably
Inability to react calmly

Defense:
Understand your “Hot Buttons and Weak Spots”
What are you proud about, what are you triggered about?
You may react with pleasure when complimented on your looks,
You may react with intense energy and excitement when someone asks about your occupation.

Psychopaths will often press your buttons privately convincing you that he or she understands as a ploy to build rapport.
Modus Operandi – How they operate.
1 Assessment of individual’s potential utility, weaknesses and defenses
2. The use of impression management and manipulation to ingratiate themselves with the individual and then to siphon off resources.
3. Abandonment, the phase in which the individual is no longer of use to the psychopath.