From some of the searches that find this blog, it’s evident that people out there are wrestling with very difficult sociopathic problems.
My son is a sociopath, what do I do? This was one recent search. The best I can do is send the searcher over to the Lovefraud blog (see link to the right) where a number of posters have been in this position.
One thing I can say is that as a sociopathic son enters puberty it is essential to protect younger siblings, particularly sisters but also brothers (sociopaths know only friction orgasms, they are essentially pansexual). It would be nothing to most sociopaths to get a sister drunk and share her with his buddies.
Secondly, apparently some of the children dropped off in Nebraska were sociopathic. If institutionalization or this route is taken I think I would (I’m thinking out loud, trying to feel my way through this) suggest staying in contact with the child. Sociopaths fully experience most of the normal prepubescent emotions of childhood I believe. Abandonment would be very real to them, not to mention also to the parents (who no doubt would be in a terrible bind). Contact would be better for the soul of the sociopath (such as it is) and the parents. Total abandonment would leave a sociopathic child angrier and more dangerous. I believe the argument could be made that Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer were serial killers due to never having bonded as infants (Ted Bundy was left in the hospital for months with his mother hesitant to keep him as I recall) not due to their inherent sociopathy, which only made them more skillful at it. Thus their murderously angry infant selves became a permanent part of their psyches, coming forth to use an adult’s capabilities and intelligence together with a sociopath’s manipulativeness and cunning to carry out their murders.
How to get a sociopath fired? My advice would be to focus strictly on the malfeasance. In my opinion it is very difficult to persuade someone of another’s sociopathy. It seems that everyone thinks they are a perfect judge of such matters, even if they have never heard of a sociopath, or think they have never met one, or expect never to meet one in their lifetime.
If the problem is sociopathic workplace bullying or harassment then there are totally different problems. Are any managers devotees of the sociopath, lovers, or blackmailed lovers? Nobody wants to leave a job or co-workers they like but sociopathic bullying is very detrimental to the victim. In my experience management and HR are usually of no help. If you stay and fight, in my opinion, you need to get as vicious as possible as quickly as possible (maybe not, if you take the bull by the horns you may get gored). Furthermore if a friend is seduced and blackmailed by a sociopathic enemy, then your friend is your enemy. The situation can get very ugly, very fast.
To those who say that such things could never happen in their world I beg to differ. ‘See no evil, a preyer’s prayer’ — to borrow a phrase. Think what a shield to the corrupt the response of “Oh, that just can’t be happening” is. Or to those who say they have no enemies, ‘I’m a nice person why should I have enemies.’ I’m afraid you don’t understand sociopathic motivations. The pick of a target for sociopathic workplace bullying may make no sense anywhere other than in the mind of a particular sociopath.
Without a professional and ethical management and HR department there are really no good options. While at UBS, I actually proposed creating an office to deal with sociopathic employees but was not taken up on it (http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/proposal-to-ubs-upper-management/).
Sociopathic employee and HR. Ha, ha, ha. What does HR stand for? Human Resources. One would assume that HR’s job would be to take care of the human resources of a company, to see that their rights are respected in terms of both company policy and labor law. Wrong. In my experience HR’s job is to assist management in exploiting the workforce. The term, Human Resources, is often merely a 180 degree lie. Such lies are a great favorite of sociopaths so many sociopaths go into the field themselves, in my experience. I have, more than once, seen sociopathic HR reps side with sociopathic employees, even criminal or mentally ill ones.
How to beat a sociopath in court? Another hard one. Occasionally they defeat themselves, Thomas Capano and Wayne Williams insisted on testifying on their own behalf driven by their high self regard and pathological optimism. In general I believe there is a vast problem of sociopathic judges, prosecutors and even defense attorneys siding with a sociopathic pleader even if this goes against the law or even the interests of a client.
Great point about HR personnel. They exist to do the dirty work.
I don’t like the comment about HR personnel. I am an office manager trying to find out how to deal with a secretary who is a sociopath. The gentleman she works for thinks she is wonderful – but he is never in the office. Everyone around here knows what is going on. When I try to talk with her boss about the issue, I am told that I have a chip on my shoulder about her.
If you have any suggestions, I’d appreciate it. She’s been here two years and pushes most of her work off on someone else. She is supposed to work for two people, but the second person always has to find someone else to do his work.
Well, I was speaking from my own experiences. Nothing would make me happier than to be proven wrong, than to find out that professionals such as yourself are the norm.
I understand your delicate position — you can see the situation but can only make suggestions. Once an individual becomes a “devotee” of a sociopath, it seems they simply can see no wrong regarding the sociopath and sometimes can not even entertain the possibility. I can’t think of anything new, but simply suggest sticking “just to the facts.” I would suggest building a record of the sociopathic employee’s derelictions of duty. It seems that the recognition of a sociopath is an “emotional, soul journey” that is not transferable to others — everyone has to experience their own “oh, moment.” At any rate I don’t think I ever persuaded anyone in a work situation of another’s sociopathy (and would no longer try). So I would concentrate on tracking verifiable behavior and building a record (and be sure, of course, to draw on other witnesses so it doesn’t appear personal).
As an aside, hopefully not applicable in your workplace, sociopathic employees will often recognize and protect each other. Also, sociopathic employees often solidify their position through blackmail, in my experience. I once knew an incompetent department head who held her position for 18 years, being fired only after her “patron” was fired. Finally, the longer a troublesome sociopathic employee (which they don’t have to be, it’s really a choice) remains in a job, the more trouble there will be — often with devastating effects on others’ professional and personal lives.