Emotional Vampires: Dealing With People Who Drain You Dry

Very heterocentric and lots of "men are from mars women are from venus" bullcrap, but if you can overlook that, there's a lot of good information in this book. Recommended reading for anybody with obnoxious people in their life that they don't know how to deal with.

{W}hen people are driving themselves crazy, they have neuroses or psychoses. When they drive other people crazy, they have personality disorders.

In this book, psychologist Bernstein describes the five personality disorders that most often drain (i.e. the “vampire” of the title) people’s emotional energy: antisocial, histrionic, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive and paranoid. It’s very interesting and applicable but I’m left feeling muddled; his organization of the material and his repetition among the various disorders did not enhance clarity.

Read during Winter 2002

I just recognize these personality types amongst people close to me. I love this book because it is about how to save yourself from these people, not how to cure them. Brilliant, funny, very good.

Although I am not a huge fan of the "self-help" genre, I do think this book is extremely helpful in devising communication strategies for the people who annoy me most. In my worklife, I give this book out as a door prize when I train managers in the gentle art of dealing with their employees' emotional baggage. It has also been helpful to me in my personal life.

The vampire hook is funny, but it doesn't go too far and it's a helpful, accurate metaphor for the personalities addressed in the book.

Good stuff.

A 'different' look at types of people. This one examines those who drain us - the 'vampires' as they call them, although it's perhaps not a helpful term as such. But there check-lists enabling us to see what it is about certain people that makes us feel exhausted when dealing with them, and there are hints about working with each of the types mentioned, as well as general advice. Perhaps a bit exaggerated in places, but still well worth reading.

Spot on. Useful tips for recognizing and dealing with a variety of obnoxious personality traits.
The book distinguishes 11 types of "vampires", in five main categories: antisocial, histrionic, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive, and paranoid. It doesn't pretend to deal with clinical disorders, just with your average defective people. It describes how to recognize, how to avoid, and how to get along if you have to. Also, some tips in case you recognize yourself in some of the descriptions.

Cómo lidiar con gente con desviaciones de la personalidad... mucho más frecuente de lo deseable.