As a psychologist, my entire job is to help people make transformations, whether in their mental well-being, performance, or relationships. Technically, everybody is capable of change. Or so I believed—until I found my life in danger, as the man I loved started exhibiting increasingly abusive behavior. It was then that I had to face up to the truth: that some people are incapable of changing. That is why we call it a personality disorder—because it pervades every level of what they are as a person. This was the first hard truth I had to swallow in order to learn how to spot the psychopaths in my life, which in turn helped my friends and later my clients to spot the psychopaths in their lives. However, few people know the reality of the Leader’s life, where their family members are often subject to abuse behind closed doors. In her book Exposing Financial Abuse, Shannon Thomas depicts the lives of women who are controlled via finances—like being forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor during pregnancy or made to eat green beans out of tins, or worrying if they can pay the gas bills— despite their husbands earning a good living and even owning luxury cars. If exposed, these stories can often get played off as ludicrous because public opinion sees the Leader as a good person, and the victim gets cast as untrustworthy or “crazy.” With such sophistry comes this ability to seem as if they are caring and empathic people. Indeed, even though most claim that psychopaths lack empathy, they actually lack emotional empathy—the ability to feel how others feel. Instead, they’re high in cognitive empathy, meaning they know how others feel—and thus how to manipulate them. Many of them watch films obsessively to study human behavior and appropriate responses. Clients often tell me they want to know if someone is “fully psychopathic” since it exists on a spectrum. Indeed, no one is 100 percent bad. We will always reference the times they were good to us, even if it’s mere words like “I support you.” The question we have to ask ourselves is: Is this person good for me? If the answer is no, then it’s time to extricate ourselves. At the end of the day, part of holistic health is being mindful and honest with ourselves about our relationships—and knowing when to walk away from the people who will only harm us in the end. She has been featured in Elle, Forbes, and Business Insider and has previously worked with Olympians, business professionals, and individuals seeking to master their psychological capital. She works globally in English and Mandarin-Chinese via Skype and Facetime, blending cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, and ancient wisdom.
