Wednesday 20 September 2017

Dysfunctional NHS managers with narcissistic or psychopathic personality disorders

A contact recently sent me an article about people with narcissistic personality disorders.  If you enter those words into your search engine, several articles will appear giving the same information.  Most of it is copyright.  It was new information to me. 

There is some work on the difference between psychopaths and narcissists on line too.  One writer says not to worry about the label, just avoid becoming a victim.  That is all very well in personal relationships if you can get away from them, but very different if you have to work with them. 

Signs of serious problems will be the number of staff who leave.  Another sign is the number of staff who are being suspended, a very effective way of destroying an innocent person who dares to complain.  My strong advice in those situations is to leave.  If you read the stories on the www.suspension-nhs.org  website and see what power and harm these people can do, you will understand why I write that.

Why do organisations fail to recognise this obvious sign and continue to support the perpetrator, unless of course the whole culture is one of bullying by the management team including the person at the helm, the chief executive?

If you are or have suffered at the hands of a malfunctioning manager/team leader/ work colleague, who is unbelievably bullying and manipulative the information is very relevant.  The signs of these disorders are very clear by the way they behave.  For example, they never apologise and never take responsibility for their actions.  It will be yours or someone else’s fault.  

They lack empathy.  They really don’t care.  For narcissists, the theory is that the person is deeply hurt from childhood and cannot face dealing with the hurt.  For the psychopath, there is no obvious reason why they lack emotional intelligence. 

I feel sad for these people.  Treatment is not easy or obvious and if they don’t realise they have a problem, then the future looks bleak.

I feel alarm for their victims because the perpetrators are so powerful within the structures of the NHS due to the absence of accountability, the anonymity of the people working in the organisations and the perpetual culture of blame that encourages this type of behaviour. And the Department of Health has too many problems to deal with this one even if it wanted to it seems inspite of the huge costs.  How will it ever change?

If you have any ideas please email me at enquiries@suspension-nhs.org Thank you
Julie