Customer Reviews

The Manipulative Man: Identify His Behavior, Counter the Abuse, Regain Control

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This book is a must read for anyone who has found themself in a relationship and second guessed their own sanity. I found myself glued to each chapter, seeing red-flags and finding answers to questions that I would not dare ask anyone. This is a great reference book to be picked up again and again.

The insight gained is invaluable.

The author's style is sprinkled with humor, and the reader is anxious to delve deeper into the human psyche. Once started, you cannot put it down.

Great advice for dealing with Emotional Vampires.

Written for women, The Manipulative Man is a detailed breakdown of the various kinds of men (behaviors). The subtitle really says it all, giving women help with these three main areas of identifying, countering and regaining.

The types are:

-- Mama's Boy

-- The Workaholic

-- The Eternal Jock

-- The Dependent Man (Woe-is-me complex)

-- Exciting Risk Taker & Full-blown Antisocial

-- The Womanizer

-- The Passive-Aggressive Man

-- The Narcissist

-- The Psychopath (and she says they are NOT all in prison)

-- Violent Manipulator

The last section is about why you might have chosen Mr. Wrong and how to make new choices--how to avoid the manipulation trap.

In each of the "kind of guys" section listed above, the author thoroughly explains the traits, behaviors, beliefs of each every guy does not have all traits), including their manipulative techniques.

Read the case studies, you can clearly see and hear the interaction and help you identify these kinds of guys. Most of the interactions are frustrated women who have already married one of these guys. The test at the end of each chapter will help you "score" him and what the score means.

Dr. McCoy explains that it's all about rules, consequences (likes like parenting) in dating or marrying these types. And the bottom line is: What do you want to do?

Some of this information was so real, so scary the book should carry a warning labels that says: Don't Read This Alone, in the Dark!

In Eternal Jock, for example, the popular athlete who all the girls wanted to date in high school and college, does not make a good husband and father until he "grows up" and realizes that THAT THE GAME OF LIFE can be exciting and give him the praise and attention his type needs.

Who should read this book? My copy goes to a single daughter and I've suggested to several dating friends why need to get their own copy--it's that good. It is like "Man 101" for all its easy-to-understand insights.

Armchair Interviews says: A woman of any age who is dating can learn a lot about men before it's too late--and she's been latched onto by one of these manipulators.

Susan Brown, I wish you had talked to me and read my other books before you posted your unwarranted comments. Please notice I also wrote From Shyness to Social Butterfly, in 2001. The suggestions I gave then are the same suggestions I gave in The Manipulative Man. My book, The Ultimate Book of Personality Tests, was published in 2005. If you read it you will see that I use many of the same tests and make some of the same observations.

I have never seen your book. The quote I used from your book came from a Google search. In the academic tradition, I quote many authors (both books and articles).

I did not choose the format or the focus of the content for the Manipulative Man. It was written in the tradition of another book (read the back cover of The Manipulative Man) at the request of the Publisher.

I wrote my first book, a workbook, in 2001 on stress management. It is now a police related workbook called Losing Our Officers to Anger, Stress and Suicide: A Wellness Solution. I have presented on it at three international conferences. It also follows my philosophy for wellness: eat nutritious foods, get plenty of rest, exercise regularly, stay connected to people, know what you can control (and what you cannot), be aware of your cognitions and how they affect your emotions, cherish your sense of humor, value the unique person you are, use cooperation and conflict resolution in relationships, believe behaviors rather than words, be able to recognize unhealthy (and often incongruent) behaviors and don't needlessly upset yourself.

Susan, please read my other books, then we will talk. No doubt, you made an honest mistake. I wish you continued success with your books.

Things would be just fine if only you would take complete responsibility for everything. That's what "manipulative men" would like you to believe, says renowned behavioral expert Dorothy McCoy. She has written a useful field guide describing the most prevalent types of manipulative males. Find out what motivates them and how you may be unknowingly contributing to the difficulties in your relationship. getAbstract recommends taking some of McCoy's quizzes to identify manipulative patterns. Try her advice for change. Chances are you're not the crazy one.

Manipulation doesn't have a gender, so when I read the Manipulative Man I thought of many men and women who would fit the "case" characters in the book. I just wish I had known how to recognize them at the times I was dealing with them and thinking that "I" was the one who was going crazy. I guess that was my first clue. The descriptions in this book make it easy to stop a manipulative person. It is good to know there are things that I can do to protect myself from these high maintenance people. I look at people from a slightly different perspective now. It really is a very readable and insightful book.

Manipulative individuals say and do things to control and undermine others. In its extreme form, manipulation is a form of emotional abuse. The Manipulative Man by Dorothy McCoy, EdD, is essential reading for everyone who wishes to work on problematic relationships with flawed, manipulative individuals who are not full-fledged personality disordered. All human beings are flawed yet most of us still manage to have close relationships with our family members and romantic partners. Many have tendencies of personality disorders; few have full-blown personality disorders, however.

While as Sandra Brown, M.A. explains in How to Spot a Dangerous Man, personality disorders are not fixable and relationships with such individuals are very dangerous and damaging, what do we do about the rest: namely, our relationships with 90 percent of the population, who, like us, has human flaws that can be worked on and improved? This is where Dorothy McCoy's book, The Manipulative Man: Identify His Behavior, Counter the Abuse, Regain Control, offers very useful coping strategies that can strengthen our ties to our significant others and mend our relationships.

McCoy first explains the manipulative personality types and his (or her) strategies of manipulation, which include: excessive flattery (especially at the beginning of the relationship), deceit, bullying, stonewalling, pity play, and projecting blame upon the victim, among others. She then offers a typology of manipulative men that women are likely to encounter and have problems with. These include: the Mama's Boy (characterized by dependency and need for caretaking and adulation); the Workaholic (who is a perfectionist, often suffers from Obsessive Personality Disorder and defines himself in terms of his work); the Eternal Jock (who relives his glory days and can't move on and deal with the responsibilities of his life); the Dependent Man (who can't make decisions and defines himself excessively in terms of his relationship to his partner, thus draining her time and energy); the Antisocial (who engages in risk-taking, transgressive and even criminal behavior, with no remorse, for the thrill of it); the Womanizer (who is often a love or sex addict, whose appetite for new conquests can never be satiated); the Passive-Aggressive man (who wallows in self-pity and constantly undermines his partner's self-esteem and accomplishments); the Narcissist (who essentially worships his own altar and views others as a mirror that reflects his perfection and greatness); the Psychopath (the social predator who charms his way into women's lives with flattery and deceit in order to use and harm them) and the Violent Manipulator (who engages in domestic violence).

The Manipulative Man explains each of these manipulative types by including not only descriptions, but also case studies that offer concrete examples and engage the reader. The book also offers coping strategies for such troubled relationships and outlines the difference between problematic traits and full-blown personality disorders. In other words, the author distinguishes between character deficiencies that can't be fixed--the best one can do in such situations is escape the relationship with minimal harm--and tendencies that may be able to be improved by working together, as a couple, on the relationship.

Even in those relationships that can be ameliorated, McCoy emphasizes that both partners have to be willing to make changes for the sake of their relationship and sustain those improvements consistently, over time. The Manipulative Man makes an important contribution to the field of couples' counseling and offers an excellent supplement to therapy. This book tells readers in a clear and entertaining manner how to save salvageable relationships while not shying away from advising not trying to save the unsalvageable relationships with personality disordered individuals.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

This is the best book I have found to lend light to BOD behavors. I found the book to be very enlightening and allowed me to better understand my spouse's behavior. Easy to read, easy to understand.

It was received fast and well packed.
The books is a great book it clearly explains all kinds of men out there, and it gives you clear stories so you can understand even more
the concepts.
I will recomend this book to every woman out there

"The Manipulative Man" could be used as a primer for younger women who haven't already recognized unscrupulous behavior. For women like me, who married manipulative men with disastrous results, it was both enlightening as well as a reminder of the red flags I should have seen. For me, the last section on why women choose such men was eye-opening. And for women everywhere who assume that "that's just the way men are," there is hope in this book by showing us ways to both recognize and avoid such dishonest conduct. It's affirmation for those of us who always thought we could have or should have done it better.

I appreciate the way this book was organized, with tests at the end of each chapter and I especially liked all the test cases cited in Dr. McCoy's personal practice.

I would recommend for women who keep asking themselves why they always end up with the same kind of man, or better, for women who intentionally choose a "different" man who ultimately reveals the same behaviors.

As I find myself mid-life dating, I will keep this book handy as reference material. Well done.

Jacqueline Gum, author
"Confessions of a Corporate Slut"

Excellent! Anyone who has had the misfortune to meet these people in their everyday life will have enormous help from this book. Recommended.