3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Be vigilent, be aware..., June 26, 2007
This review is from: Psychopaths: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Wicked Men (Paperback)
Although published in 2004, Clarke's book, about the habits and behaviour of these disturbed and at times, dangerous people continues to be relevant because evil never goes out of fashion.
Let's have a careful look at the situation: at one time or another, we have all come across one of these people in the work place, in a relationship, a family member or so-called friend. Clarke provides the knowledge and skills to spot the typical psychopath and the tools to deal with them...without getting burned.
But who and what are they?
A psychopath or sociopath views the world in an entirely different manner.
As one leading psychologist put it, these "people" take narcissism to an entirely new level. There own welfare is paramount because their only motivation in life is the attainment of their own goals, their own welfare, but what is different, is that they will do "anything" to get what or who they want. The problem is the psychopath cannot see or feel another's life or feelings. The one symptom all psychopaths have in common is a glaring lack of conscience. More than this, however, is an inability to "feel" emotion. More often these mutants can "act" emotional, particularly when wanting pity or forgiveness, but have no capacity to actually empathize, feel what the other is thinking or feeling, their world is about them and only them.
Clarke has worked with senior Australian law enforcement on serious profile cases as well as a senior investigator on sex homicide crime scenes. He also works as a consultant to leading international corporations and government agencies requesting his advice because his clients come to realize they could well have a "live one" and wanting to grasp the appropriate processes to deal with them. (Standard processes in these cases for many reasons will not work.)
It can get tricky as the intelligent psychopath can wriggle out of the spot light and work in the shadows forever, planting toxic seeds over time that can act like time bombs, exploding when most of us least expect it and usually at inopportune moments.
A nasty business.
The play ground bully becomes the workplace stand-over merchant, fiercely mean, charismatic, and most importantly is without conscience; covertly or overtly, destroying peoples lives without mercy. All, by the way, to win, to have power, to be "number one", to manipulate until the endgame.
Clarke tells us about some chilling individuals and their actions and the mind boggles at their actions and behaviour, all without a second thought.
The psychopath has exact behaviours and "labelling" someone a psychopath because of a few inadvertent actions, occasional jumps to the irrational, does not make them a full blown nut case. This behaviour is consistent over time, and the author's system is to track this behaviour over a long period of similar patterns of actions and inactions before any behaviours are "diagnosed".
We've all experienced this person, this book provides the tools to spot them and deal with their destructive games.
Invaluable.
Texts on psychopaths suggested:
The Sociopath Next DoorWithout Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us
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