Playing the Victim: How Sociopaths Con Legal Professionals (and Everyone Else)
Playing the Victim: How Sociopaths Con Legal Professionals (and Everyone Else) ©2023 Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. Sociopath is another word for antisocial personality disorder according to the diagnostic manual of mental health professionals, currently the DSM-5-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). One of the criteria for this personality is: “Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.” (748) While research shows that this personality disorder is present in nearly four percent of adults (one out of every 25 people), few people consider that they are being lied to when a person says they are a victim of someone else’s bad behavior. Yet sociopaths constantly want to dominate others and conning is one of the easiest ways to do this—and get others to assist them. Sadly, this is especially true for legal professionals (lawyers, judges, mediators, therapists, law enforcement, and others), because they are trained and eager to protect victims from abusive people. Unfortunately, such false statements to legal professionals can land an innocent person in jail, a true victim of abuse accused of harming a perpetrator, an innocent person ordered to pay a scammer, or a child put in danger’s way. This article explains how such conning works and a simple way to avoid getting conned. How Conning Works A con is more than a lie. A con is designed to get you to do something you wouldn’t do if you knew the truth. This is why sociopaths are often known as “con artists.” There are several ways that they accomplish this: distraction, negative stereotyping, identifying your weaknesses, fabricating a crisis, and playing the victim. Distraction A simple example is the thief who gets you to look up at the sky (“look at that strange bird”) while picking your pocket. You certainly wouldn’t have given him your wallet on purpose and you wouldn’t have looked up at the sky if you knew you were being conned. When conning legal professionals, such con artists intensely point the finger at another person and claim that that person is acting badly. Most legal professionals then focus on how badly the other person is acting and analyze what actions should be taken against them. Most of the time, they don’t stop to consider that it is the accuser who may be acting badly. This allows the first person who claims abuse to be automatically believed and action taken against the “bad” other. Negative Stereotyping (Creating a Target of Blame) When one person makes enough emotional claims that another person is acting badly, the listener will often form a negative stereotype of that person. Once this has occurred, the listener will easily believe more complaints about that person and may even fabricate some of their own that seem to fit what such a bad actor would do. Psychological research on this subject was described years ago as “stereotype induction” in the book Jeopardy in the Courtroom (American Psychological Association, 1996). Another term I like to use is that the accuser focuses on someone they choose to be their target of blame, who usually has done nothing wrong. A more common term for all of this is a villain—the whole person is evil. Whatever the term, sociopaths attack the person in their efforts to create a distraction for their schemes. Take an example I have seen several times: A mother has been doing just fine as the primary custodial parent after a divorce. The father with sociopathic traits has a set-back in business or relationships and decides to look somewhere else for someone to dominate. He decides to take the child away from the mother and show the world that he is the primary custodial parent. This will put him in the position of dominating both the mother in court and the child in his home, and also helps him look good for getting dates. He files a motion in family court claiming that the mother is abusive, regularly interferes with him picking up the child, doesn’t put his name as a parent on the list at school, and doesn’t tell him about doctor’s appointments. This list of bad behavior creates a negative stereotype of the mother which grabs the attention of his lawyer, who argues successfully at court that the mother is a bad actor. The mother is flabbergasted at court and says none of this is true and that he is lying, but she is caught off-guard and isn’t organized to provide much evidence. The negative stereotype of the mother has already set in from the intensity of the father’s allegations. The court accepts the extensive list of bad behaviors as true and rules in favor of the father, while harshly telling the mother to stop blaming the father and take responsibility for her own behavior. That the mother was telling the truth was never considered. With short court hearings, this happens more than most people realize. Identifying Your Weaknesses Sociopaths are brilliant at figuring out your vulnerabilities. Many legal professionals have their favorite problems they like to solve, which sociopaths are eager to manipulate. Some professionals focus on a class of victims. For example, I knew a lawyer several years ago who represented clients with AIDS who had been discriminated against. One client she had worked with for over a year finally had a trial date coming up. Before the trial, she told him she needed the paperwork showing that he had AIDS. It turned out he never had it and had conned her into working hard on his case because he seemed like such a victim. In family law, some lawyers and therapists specialize in domestic violence and primarily take those cases. Some lawyers and therapists specialize in parental alienation and primarily take those cases. When determining parenting plans in and out of court in divorce cases, such a history can make a big difference. I have seen true domestic violence cases in which an abusive parent falsely alleged parental alienation to distract from
Addressing the Bully in the Room: High Conflict Personalities in Workplace Investigations
Workplace conflict is nothing new. But for employers, undertaking workplace investigations is a relatively new – and highly prevalent – practice. A large proportion of workplace conflicts include at least one person exhibiting traits of a high conflict personality. This raises the question of how an investigator can be equipped to run a fair and effective process, despite the challenges presented by high conflict personalities.
Adolescent Mental Health and New Ways for Life Skills
Adolescent Mental Health and New Ways for Life Skills @2023 Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq and Susie Rayner, GradDip FDRP Approximately 25% of adolescents today would meet the criteria for at least one mental illness diagnosis, with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) being among the most prevalent. For many adults, mental illness begins in adolescence: “More than one-third of all mental disorders begin before the age of 14 years, and nearly one-half by age 18.” Since 2007, “child and adolescent mental health have become prominent as a worldwide public health problem.” (Ribeiro et al, 2022, 2) Stress on Parents All adolescents face numerous difficulties navigating the years from 12 to 17. Parents are often at a loss as to how they can be most helpful through this period of significant ups and downs. They don’t know what is normal and what a parent is supposed to do. These challenges for parents include addressing the following teen problems: mental health issues (diagnosed or undiagnosed) mood swings (unpredictability with emotions and behaviors) physical and hormonal changes gender identity issues teen peer pressure – exploration with illicit drugs and alcohol, sexual relationships and risk taking a generation of just plain lazy technology and setting limits on screens online trolls and predators luring teenagers into dangerous and sometimes fatal situations online scams and fake news entitlement / selfishness social media addiction and access to inappropriate content teenage academic pressure and burnout Limited Services Yet only a small percentage of adolescents with mental health problems get the help they need, and parents of adolescents are particularly concerned about how they can help their teens. Since COVID began, waiting lists for therapists are long and when therapists are available their cost is beyond the reach of many (most?) families. But there may be another way of helping adolescents between the choices of therapy or nothing. A recent major study looked at child and adolescent services in low-and-middle-income countries, where 90% of the world’s children live but also where most mental health services are unavailable or unaffordable. “Our main results show that several interventions have been shown to be effective in treating youth mental health problems in LMICs [low and middle income countries], particularly psychoeducation and psychotherapy, with 54.5% and 48.9% of studies finding positive results respectively,…” (Ribeiro et al, 2022, 9) In other words, psychoeducational approaches may be just as helpful as psychotherapy, especially when psychotherapy is not available. In addition, this research found that “non-specialists” can be helpful in educating others about positive self-help skills. New Ways for Life With High Conflict Institute, we have developed four different methods of teaching skills that can be useful in high conflict situations—or any situations. We call them the 4 Big Skills for Life: Flexible Thinking Managed Emotions Moderate Behaviors Checking Yourself We teach and apply these skills in detail in four settings: New Ways for Families®: For separating and divorcing parents New Ways for Mediation℠: Mediation skills for all mediators New Ways for Work®: Coaching method for anyone in the workplace New Ways for Life™: For teenagers 12-17 (approximately) In the New Ways for Life method, we apply these 4 Big Skills specifically by teaching teens: How to write emails, texts, DMs and social media posts that are BIFF (Brief, Informative, Friendly, and Firm) This can be so helpful because of all the stressful communications they get from their peers. (Moderate behaviors) How to calm themselves with Encouraging Statements, even when no one else is around who feels encouraging. (Managed emotions) How to use our Making Proposals process, to help them learn to make decisions with their friends and family members in a productive way. (Flexible thinking) Taking responsibility and not just blaming others. (Checking themselves) When we developed New Ways for Life, we wanted it to be simple and immediate in its applicability for teenagers. So, there is a Youth Journal that guides them through the skills, explaining each of them and encouraging them to write in the Journal about their perspective on each skill and how they might apply them. We explain the value of each skill and that they take practice. This includes some commentary on the brain and how we can learn to tame our brain when it makes us terribly upset. There is also an Instructor’s Guide giving you a step by step guide into teaching these skills in your choice of a group environment or in a 1:1 setting. Coaching Adolescents with New Ways for Life This method is designed for many kinds of professionals who can be the coaches: youth leaders/groups school counselors youth counselors or therapists youth mentors or coaches youth community support centers youth justice /prevention support workers sports coaches parents school teachers any parent or professional that is involved with or works with young people ranging from 12 – 17 years old. For example, you might be a sports coach and want your team to play the game cohesively and work together to be the best they can be as a team. We know that the top athletes spend money on mind-set coaches, so that their minds are positive and in alignment with their athletic ability. It’s not all about their sporting ability, it’s also about how they act, how they think and how they interact with their team-mates. As professionals we are rearing the next generation of politicians, doctors, teachers, builders, computer IT experts and so on. These skills are a gift. They are simple, fundamental skills, helping them so that they can be their best in difficult and stressful situations in their future lives. As parents, we all know that parenting doesn’t come with a handbook, however, you can help by teaching these skills to your adolescent. You will be giving them life skills that they can use as they venture out into the big wide world and in their home environment, and who knows, they may even teach their parents a thing or two about