Don't look for serial killers... one in 25 of the people around you is a psychopath, hiding and living a secret life. Psychopaths take what they want, using their charm and wits. They feel only the emotions of a predator. In this book Pieter Hintjens decodes the mystery of the psychopath. Why do such people exist? How do they operate? And most critical of all, can we learn to avoid them, or escape them? The answers will enlighten you. This book delivers practical tools and techniques to survive the most difficult people.
a software developer and past president of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), an association that fights against software patents. In 2007, he was nominated one of the "50 most influential people in IP" by Managing Intellectual Property magazine.
What is not to love in this book? A long time ago I read Martha Stout's Sociopath Next Door and George Simon's Sheep's Clothing and loved them! But, every time I try to find a book as good, I end up with some self help book that is written by people who seem unable to employ a logical thinking style. Worse, they sell themselves as experts and include studies in which the methods are terrible. It's so frustrating.
Hintjens told his reader right off the bat that a) he was not an expert and in fact has no actual training in psychology b) he was looking at anecdotal evidence gained from people in his own life c) he did his best to observe and study manipulative behavior from as many sources as he could while writing this book
The result was great. It is almost comical that someone with no education in psychology wrote a book that outshines 90% of books I have read that were written by those who have PhDs in psychology and see patients on a regular basis. Does he get everything right? Probably not. I definitely don't know if I am buying his theory that psychopaths lack creativity. While I think it is likely that a subset of psychopaths are exactly what he describes (so well!), I am not sure it is generally true of all psychopaths. I really want to know and might do some research to try to find out if there is indeed a connection between psychopaths / manipulation and lack of creativity. His claim is that psychopaths will not create art, new food recipes, or any other creation. They will follow a formula to make anything. He also claims that they lack a good sense of smell and that they have no disgust response when eating bad food. They simply spit it out. These are all claims for which I would like verification.
Hintjens really shined when he discussed various emotions. He categorized various types of emotions, e.g. defense, love, sexual, and predator and made the claim that psychopaths only possess "predator" emotions. What a great hypothesis. This section definitely sets Hintjens apart from other authors covering the same topic.
When discussing the psychopath, Hintjens used Alice and Bob -- familiar to anyone who studies information theory, economics, black holes, etc -- to represent the non psychopathic individual and Mallory (akin to malware or malice) to represent the psychopath. . Mallory represents both male and female manipulators and was interesting choice. However, at times it felt, to me anyway, that it detracted from helping the reader understand that there are many faces of a manipulator. All psychopaths are not the same. He knows this and has said as much. I am not suggesting he thinks Mallory is one person and every thing attributed to Mallory can be attributed to every psychopath. It just didn't work for me at times. In Martha Stout's book, she assigned a name to the manipulator and told us his or her story. Each was different and I came away thinking how fascinating the many faces of psychopathy were. With Mallory, I had trouble seeing him or her as separate people. That might say more about how I read than how Hintjens writes. I would like for the manipulator to change but would have been happy for Bob and Alice to stay the same.
My issue with Mallory aside, he provided many scenarios in which the manipulator took control. His explanations were clear, insightful, and accompanied by what seemed to be real world solutions that might actually work with individuals who manipulate. As I read, I remember feeling shocked at the practical solutions offered. My familiarity with psychopaths was through taking coursework on neuroscience and psychopathy, gender and psychopathy, and a basic abnormal psych class. None of these offered solutions about how to deal with a psychopath because they would have had to have tested the approaches for efficacy. If they do test to see what works, they should use the suggestions in this book as a starting point. Seemed pretty on target to me.
There were too many descriptions of manipulative behaviors to cover here but some of the best were:
- Manipulators often lack loving emotions and use people for gain, and yet they are still able to sell themselves as moral authorities who think it is their job to teach others.
- The biggest indicator that you are dealing with a psychopathic type is their inability to apologize or self reflect. Psychopaths see themselves as the authority and are supremely confident about that authority. They often compulsively teach others about moral behavior.
-They play the victim but the details are often vague and changeable and they stop all attempts to verify their story. They do all they can to cut off contact between the prior victims and their present victims, meaning there is always a reason why you can't talk openly with the people in their past.
-They choose targets who are a submissive, often a little nervous or awkward in social situations, and show a willingness to listen and take action on the psychopath's behalf. When they find the appropriate target, they go after the target's assets and do not stop until they have drained them of everything possible.
- They begin by making their target feel like the most special person, over valuing them. Then they convince the target that their friends and family members are disrespecting them. This is so they can isolate them from anyone who could challenge the psychopath, when they finally stop over valuing their target and begin cutting them down emotionally in order to drain them of their resources.
- They are often quite good at reading emotions in others and faking empathy, love, or other emotions when it will get them what they want. However, these emotions quickly disappear when they are unable to control the situation.
- They demand to know every detail about others, while keeping details about their own life very private, even from significant others.
It is hard to imagine a more interesting disorder than psychopathy, and this book is one of the better books on the topic. I highly recommend.
The most dangerous misconception is that victims stay with psychopathic abusers purely out of psychological dependence. In fact, abusers often turn violent and even murderous when their partner leaves. Please, trust your gut over this book!
The author also embarrasses himself by refusing to study any clinical psychology. He has decided that "a mentally ill person needs help, whereas a psychopath's victims need help" (apparently those can't both be true at once), so a psychopath with a mental illness diagnosis is "appropriating the label". Thus, he writes that "only a psychopath" would shift rapidly between calm and extreme emotions, or forget that people exist when they're not around - when those are typical borderline traits. Borderlines often commit abusive behaviours, but they're not the incurable monsters the book claims psychopaths are, so under the rug they go.
The fake-science veneer is also annoying: Lots of discussion of evolutionary origins of emotions and behaviours (based on observing exactly one culture...) with no practical validation or use. Vague vignettes with charged language ("charming", "predatory") instead of concrete description of behaviours. Stats that were evidently pulled out of a hat.
Instead of this book, read two far better books:
1. Lundy Bancroft's _Why Does He Do That?_ ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...? ) especially if you are a woman dealing with an angry, controlling, or abusive male partner. Bancroft has the bizarre idea that women never abuse men, but is otherwise full of excellent, concrete examples and advice.
2. Raven Kaldera's _The Ethical Psychic Vampire_ ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... ) if you have psychopathic tendencies yourself and don't think you're a complete monster. Kaldera's theory is utterly wacky, but that doesn't matter - he reports concrete observations, and when he gives advice he also gives the result he observed.
it's definetely not a scientific book. very personal and coherent views of the author on the topic of predators in modern society. and it's focused on very specific kind of predators - cold blooded professional manipulators and liers that lack basic notion of empathy. the best part of reading personal non-fiction is that you can see the world view of another person, how he/she managed to stitch different facts and observations (that might be very familiar to you) in a very unique and sometimes enlightning way.
I recommend you don't read this book. It's full of stories which are either author's personal stories or invented by him for this book. It doesn't contain references to evidence about the main claims of the book. It doesn't mention scientific literature except for a few popular science articles barely related to the topic of psychopathy. Also in my life experience I've never encountered people acting as described in this book.
Because of the aforementioned reasons I think that a lot of claims of the book might be false.
I quite enjoyed reading this book though had to take break from it three times and didn't want to go back for quite some time.
Hintjens formulates a theory, which may surprise those, who are long accustomed to "humans at the top of the food chain". It's a supplementary theory, saying that some humans evolved to prey on other humans. Majority of us will build, while some will steal what is being built. Majority will create, giving their time, effort and resources while some will only take. Hintjens postulates that it's 4% of our species, and he calls them psychopaths.
The book deals with their hunting customs, showing differences in thinking, approaches, emotions felt and motivations. Hintjens is very consistent and most of his messages are stressed many times, through stories, analytical thinking, anecdotes and examples.
While I would like for more evidence and sources to some claims, I must admit that this book does offer a very reasonable outlook on several behaviours evident in abusive relationships. I found myself nodding several times, when some memories made much more sense with the explanations from the book. Hintjens doesn't attempt to portray himself as a medical expert, though he claims experience when it comes to dealing with psychopaths. Overall, I really liked this book for it's consistency and broadening my horizons (why people can't leave abusive relationships was incredibly well explained) but I wanted more sources for some claims (even if it was "only" personal experience) and felt the ratio of "who is psychopath" and "how to find it out" and "about psychopaths" was way to high when compared to "what to do once you find one".
I found this book utterly compelling, but I’m reluctant to recommend it to others. It presents what feels like a pretty radical thesis: that we are surrounded by, and locked in a predator-prey cycle, with psychopaths making up about 4% of the population. Admitting that you found this idea in a self-published online book and bought into it seems risky. If you’re less inclined to accept the author’s ideas, you probably won’t like his self-described habit of “mak[ing] many hypotheses, and stat[ing] them as if they are facts.”
The book also contains a fair amount of gender essentialism and anecdotal evidence drawn from the author’s life as a heterosexual white male software developer. I’m personally quite comfortable with that perspective, but it means that the disclaimer (that the book is just a collection of hypotheses which the author would love to see disproven) has a lot of work to do. If you find it irritating when tech bros venture outside their field of expertise, you should probably read about the predator model of psychopathy somewhere else.
On the other hand, if you haven’t heard of the predator model and you don’t mind learning about such things from non-psychologists, have a read. I liked it a lot. And you can download the PDF for free.
I discovered this book along with his other pieces when Pieter Hintjens was about to apply euthanasia. The book was really phenomenal and even influential to me nowadays. But after reading other psychological books I found out what the author written are not empirical data rather his personal experience and assumptions, some of the could be misleading and ambiguous to general readers. The definition "Psychopath" is also redefined by his suit as he mentioned in foreword. But you can take the general idea of it, would be useful certain situation. Otherwise it will lead you accuse other people as "psychopath" he stated in the later part of the book.
More personal than scientific. Has some interesting thoughts on identifying psychopaths, but not all of them are backed by sources. Focused on people who may be in a relationship with a psychopath. Not very useful from a perspective of a person interested in finding psychopath in the workplace. Not bad, but I felt I wasn't the intended audience.
too long a book for the content; interesting idea - gives the reader a different, fun, not-sure-if-accurate filter for people - psychopath vs not-psychopath; too personal, too determined to prove for a psychology piece...
Hintjens started the book by claiming that he's not a professional - this book was written based on his own experience and social experiment against the psychopaths he met during his lifetime. Knowing his software engineering background, I intrigued how he wrote this piece. After reading it, I should say it's very practical.
He uses vivid examples that might have been encountered by you, perhaps once or twice in your lifetime. You might have experienced it by yourself, or you might see it from the sidelines when it happened. Hintjens tried to break down the examples to two point of views - the victim and the perpetrator. Through the examples, he tried to explain the many facets of psychopathy, and help the readers to self-diagnose their own circumstances.
The book concluded with practical steps on escaping psychopathy relationships and organizations - Diagnose, Observe, Inhibit, and Terminate. Based on the book, the process will be lengthy, but it's better than to stay in a burning house. The psychopaths doesn't feel empathy for their victims, hence there's no gain on staying in one.
I might not agree with his whole worldview, but I do think everyone should read this book. It could save your skin in the future, or better - help others who became victims of psychopathy. Hintjens make it available for free in his website before he passed away. Of course, you could always buy it through Amazon if you're feeling generous.
This book is a mix of very good and very bad. The first half is much better, with the predator/prey theorizing and his expansion of the idealize-devalue-discard cycle. Victims of manipulators can use these to frame their situation and protect themselves. But the expansive framework of emotions he constructs probably has errors; genuine impatience seems readily present in personality-disordered manipulators. The advice near the end to confront a psychopath/manipulator rather than just disappearing without a trace is especially bad. You don't need to "remove the hooks first" and "leave on your terms", you just need to accept that there's something very wrong/that you're being abused and start executing a plan to leave. Hintjens did a Reddit AMA thread where he again advised a woman to confront a psychopath; she replied that she tried this and was raped by her ASPD abuser in a bathroom.
The book was also missing an editor who could have caught a few sloppy contradictions and erroneous references.
Some other resources that may be useful: outofthefog.website, Todd Grande's videos on narcissism, issendai.com's posts on psychology and parental alienation forums, reddit's /r/NPD and related subreddits for first-hand perspectives.
«رازهای سایکوپات» کتاب روانشناسی برای شناخت و فاصله گرفتن از انسانهایی که به دنبال سود و منافع وارد رابطهٔ دوستی و عاطفی یا حتی کاری و سازمانی با ما میشن. کتاب بهشدت کارآمده؛ البته مقداری آدم رو بدبین میکنه که برای من اتفاق بدی نبود. من با ترجمهٔ فارسی خوندم که هم اینجا نداشت، هم بسیار ترجمهٔ افتضاحی بود. مترجم حتی جملات سادهٔ انگلیسی رو هم درست نمیفهمید که ترجمه کنه و میتونستم متوجه بشم اصل جمله چی بوده که به چنین فاجعهای ختم شده. بدون ترجمه به کتاب ۴ میدم و به نظرم خوندنش، حتی با اینکه نویسندهش روانشناس نیست لازمه، مخصوصاً اگه احساس تخلیهٔ انرژی و خستگی و افسردگی تو روابطتون میکنید. مجهزتون میکنه به شناختی که ممکنه ازتون محافظت کنه. ترجمه اینقدر بده که ۲.۵ میگیره، و میانگین بهش ۳ میدم.
Most highlights I had in a single book. Title might be misleading and it confused me for some time. It is about social predators and what they do.
The biggest problem I have is all or nothing thinking. Even when author admits that most of us behave like that from time to time he doesn’t address that at all. Says that you only need to mention the probkem to a normal person and they will adjust their behaviour. It sound too good to be true and it doesn’t sound so easy to me.
While I'm very interested in the sociology of wackos online, I'm not sure that classifying people as psychopaths is very helpful. I petered out on this one even though alot of the information was new to me and interesting.
As mentioned by other readers, this book is light on evidence and references and heavy on made-up anecdotes. It could have been a much more interesting read on a fascinating topic.
I didn't expect to be fascinated quite so much by this book, as I don't even have a particular interest in psychopathy. The book isn't a review of the existing understanding of psychopaths, but rather a hypothesis that the author offers (which he makes clear from the start). That said, it's well reasoned and compelling, and I found it very interesting to consider the perspective that psychopaths are a sort of a branched off subspecies of human with minds that work in an alien way compared to regular people. There are plenty of intriguing tidbits throughout the book that made me stop and think (like the social role of emotions and their physical manifestations). An enjoyable read!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Great short read that will save your skin at least once. I like how it explained that not every person you meet or work with will have your best interest in mind. They don't even have to be "evil" - they could just be a psychopath. I liked how the author strove to establish how hard it is to identify a psychopath, simply because they're quite rare, then gave some pointers on what to do when you're in the thick of things.
Reading it definitely had a therapeutic effect on me, it helped me understand and come to terms with one dead relationship I used to have. I was realized that it indeed was them and not me.
Started reading not really knowing what to expect and was very pleasantly surprised. This book is information dense and does not needlessly beat around the bush like so many books do. It is full of interesting models of reality that are applicable in many situations that have nothing to do with psychopaths. And instead of just explaining how things are, the author also covers how and why those came to be. I've assigned lower credence to some of the models, though many I am now using as primary/default model for the thing they describe. Well worth the time!