Taming Toxic People: The Science of Identifying and Dealing with Psychopaths at Work by David Gillespie

Author:David Gillespie [Gillespie, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2017-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

Children

‘[My] mother, the most beautiful person in the world. She was strong, she worked hard to take care of four kids. A beautiful person. I started stealing her jewellery when I was in the fifth grade. You know, I never really knew the bitch – we went our separate ways.’ – Jack, a convicted criminal psychopath

A psychopathic child regards its parents and siblings as potential sources of financial reward. They will have learnt how to manipulate them very early in their life and will have constantly and relentlessly practised every day since. No one knows your weaknesses and hot-buttons more than your psychopathic child or sibling. They will expend much effort in schemes designed to manipulate family members against each other. Often this is so they gain some sort of privilege or even a financial reward. But sometimes it will just be practice.

They will use all of the manipulative techniques used by office psychopaths and a few more that will be specific to your family circumstances. If, for example, they know that it is important to you that you have time with your parents, they will ensure that last-minute emergencies or changes of plan constantly conspire to minimise that happening. They will partition family communication as much as possible so that suspicion is raised and trust is diminished.

CASE STUDY: MICHAEL, THE PSYCHOPATHIC CHILD

Michael started being difficult around the age of three, just after his brother Allan was born. He began throwing tantrums almost daily. They were much more extreme than the usual toddler blow-out. These five-star freak-outs went on for hours and would usually be a response to being asked to do something he didn’t want to do.

By the time he was five, Michael was able to switch from tantrum to silky smooth charm at the drop of a hat. His mother found this deeply unsettling. This went on for years. At eight, Michael was punching the walls and kicking holes in the door or slamming the toilet seat down repeatedly until it broke. But he was also able to switch this behaviour off when it suited him. His parents tried everything – every expert and every recommended book – but they were unable to control him and unable to predict how Michael would behave. So, not wishing to take the chance of a public meltdown, they severely limited their social life.

Michael didn’t care if his parents were mad at him. He would act out until he got whatever he wanted and was completely unrepentant. At the age of nine, Michael was diagnosed as being a psychopath by researchers at Florida International University.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.