Now, what some of us do is we do work with corporations doing training to make them aware of what psychopathy is so that when their HR people are hiring, or interviewing people, they'll know what the disorder is, but they're also, the HR people are also trained to look for other things as well. So, I think it's important to note that this sinister personality type is not lurking around every corner, or attempting to break down the doors of corporate America, but we do know that these folks are out there and that if they do come in to law enforcement, or any profession, and they get involved, the damage that they can do can be significant.
They can be very disruptive. They can, but does that disruption equate to criminal behavior and, no, it does not necessarily do that, but if corporations would have their own strategies for dealing with an employee that uses and manipulates people, that sells company secrets, that does other kinds of very disruptive behaviors, and so does law enforcement, if we have a law enforcement officer that doesn't commit a crime as a police officer, but becomes very disruptive because possibly being psychopathic, then they have their own ways of dealing with that through internal affairs and then termination.
But, again, if someone is having psychopathic traits and they're not breaking the law there's nothing that you can do. Now, I get calls all the time from people, primarily women, who believe that they are dealing with a psychopathic boyfriend, or a psychopathic husband, and I hear from them a lot that what they're trying to do is to deal with him.
Sometimes they're trying to deal with him in a court situation like custody, or sometimes they're just trying to deal with him, and they ask for my advice and I'm very careful about giving advice because in a five minute conversation you don't know what you don't know and most of the time it's like 99%, or they're not telling you because you don't have that kind of time, but when it comes to changing somebody's personality, what I tell people is you cannot change them.
You cannot change them and so best advice is to walk away. You have to find an exit strategy, but you can't call up your local police department and say I think my boyfriend is a psychopath, it's not a criminal offense.
R.K.: Right. So Bernie Madoff, would you call him a psychopath?
M.O.: I'm not going to call anybody a psychopath that hasn't been assessed.
R.K.: Okay, fair enough. Does his, from what you have seen about him, does his behavior look like it might be? I mean, how can you respond to a question about Bernie Madoff in a way you're comfortable with?
M.O.: The way I'm comfortable with is to say I'm aware of his behavior, but I didn't work on the case, I wasn't involved in the investigation, and wasn't asked to be, so it would be very, it wouldn't be appropriate, nor would it be ethical, to say based on the very limited amount that I know I would use this term to describe this person. I have to be very careful because of my position to use that term and that's not a cop out.
I've got to be very careful because I still testify in court and if someone hears me being very reckless with terms because labels matter and words make a difference. So, I believe that before we can use that term I have to have a basis for being able to do that and certainly, especially with high profile cases, unless there's been a formal assessment, I won't do it.
R.K.: Okay. That's fair enough. I guess I wanted to go there because let's say somebody in his operation had concerns that he was doing illegal things and was a psychopath, or I guess there are two separate things, or are they? If somebody has got suspicions that they're dealing with a psychopath at work, what do they do?
M.O.: Again, if someone, and here is the caution that I would give to people, people will, it's kind of in our nature, people will read one or two books on psychopathy and they'll go to work and they'll sit next to their coworker who is kind of a jerk and all of a sudden they're labeling them as a psychopath. So, you can see how dangerous that can get.
Again, it's not a term to use very lightly. Now, if someone is at work, and you work next to them, they're not friendly, they're kind of a jerk, but they're not breaking company rules, they're not hurting people, they're just being very unpleasant, I don't know what your company wants to do with that. That's up to your company, but I would caution people not to become arm chair therapists and I see that, I honestly see that, happening way too often.
If there is behavior at work, disregard the label. Disregard the term, psychopath because it's too easy to try put people into a box. If you're working with someone who is hurting you, is creating serious issues at work, who is hurting the company somehow, when you see behaviors that rise to the level of being more than just unpleasant, then you go to HR, and I don't care what label it is, and you go and you discuss it with them and then let them process it through whatever system that they have and, I tell people this a lot. You're not trained to assess psychopathy, but if you see behavior that is problematic, you bring that behavior to someone's attention, but don't bring the label because you don't know if the label fits, or if the label doesn't fit. It doesn't matter, if the behavior is problematic, report the behavior, suspend the label.
R.K.: Okay, that sounds like good advice. Don't use the word psychopath, but use the descriptions that you're seeing. It makes sense.
M.O.: Right, but the behaviors that you're seeing may, or may not, be indicative of psychopathy, but the behavior still can be dangerous, or threatening behavior so, again, I think there are people that can hurt us, threaten us, be dangerous to us, and still not be psychopathic. Not all criminals are psychopaths. The majority of people who do commit crimes are not psychopaths. So, we have to keep a healthy balance here and a healthy understanding of this.
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