Product Description

"If I'd had a copy of this book when I started therapy, I might have saved myself a lot of time and money. Bernstein provides a field guide to the various types of Emotional Vampires and advises readers how to protect themselves from being victims of these predatory personalities." - Diane White, "The Boston Globe". Emotional Vampires: They're out there ...masquerading as ordinary people. They may lurk in your office, your family, your circle of friends; perhaps they even share your bed. Chances are, you know all too many of them. Bright, talented, and charismatic, they win your trust, your confidence, and your affection - then drain you of your emotional energy. But take heart as you walk through the darkness, it doesn't have to be that way - the more you know about vampires, the less power they have over you.Here, Dr. Albert J. Bernstein, vampire-slayer and author of the best-selling "Dinosaur Brains and Neanderthals at Work", reveals the secrets that will protect you once and for all. Detailing a whole range of personality types and human responses, Bernstein shows you how to spot the "vampires" in your life: self-serving Narcissists, hedonistic Antisocials, exhausting Paranoids, or over-the-top Histrionic drama queens. And, with valuable advice, psychological perspective, and much-needed humor, he gives you a range of defense strategies that are guaranteed to keep the blood-sucking creatures of darkness from draining you dry. By the end of "Emotional Vampires", you'll be armed with superior knowledge, a treasure chest of vampire-slaying tools, and all the confidence you need to take on the most draining people in your life and win without shedding the first drop of blood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17564 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Back Cover

"If I'd had a copy of this book when I started therapy, I might have saved myself a lot of time and money. Bernstein provides a field guide to the various types of Emotional Vampires and advises readers how to protect themselves from being victims of these predatory personalities."­­Diane White, The Boston Globe

Emotional Vampires: They're out there . . . masquerading as ordinary people. They may lurk in your office, your family, your circle of friends; perhaps they even share your bed. Chances are, you know all too many of them. Bright, talented, and charismatic, they win your trust, your confidence, and your affection­­then drain you of your emotional energy. But take heart as you walk through the darkness, it doesn't have to be that way­­the more you know about vampires, the less power they have over you.

Here Dr. Albert J. Bernstein, vampire-slayer and author of the best-selling Dinosaur Brains and Neanderthals at Work, reveals the secrets that will protect you once and for all. Detailing a whole range of personality types and human responses, Bernstein shows you how to spot the "vampires" in your life: self-serving Narcissists, hedonistic Antisocials, exhausting Paranoids, or over-the-top Histrionic drama queens. And, with valuable advice, psychological perspective, and much-needed humor, he gives you a range of defense strategies that are guaranteed to keep the blood-sucking creatures of darkness from draining you dry.

By the end of Emotional Vampires, you'll be armed with superior knowledge, a treasure chest of vampire-slaying tools, and all the confidence you need to take on the most draining people in your life and win without shedding the first drop of blood.

About the Author

Albert J. Bernstein, Ph. D., is the author of Dinosaur Brains, Neanderthals at Work, and Sacred Bull. A clinical psychologist, speaker, columnist, and business consultant, Dr. Bernstein is well known for teaching people to confront difficult and frightening situations with wit, wisdom, grace, and liberal doses of humor.

Customer Reviews

This book explains what is happening to you!
Having decided that my partner had some sort of personality problem and was "draining me dry" emotionally, I got the book on the basis of other Amazon reviews on it. WOW! WOW! There he was! The "lovable rogue" (even the cartoon picture of the personality type was HIM (incredible!)).Now I understood why he never asked me about my day, my life, my interests. That he was so self-centered he thought he was entitled to expect everything I did for him without so much as an acknowledgement, let alone a thank you. The book explained why this "antisocial personality" (psychology speak) has an unfortunate name as they love parties, but just use them to have more people to prey on, to satisfy their every whim. They are really basically loners, and have difficulties with long term relationships, as there is no two-way interaction or empathy. This book made it so clear to me,better than other books on the subject, which concentrate on why they became as they are and to see things from their perspective etc. This one tells you how to RECOGNIZE and HANDLE the problems, and believe me it helps you cope. In my case I had to end the relationship, and I am sure this book made the whole process far less painful (for me, as he would not feel a thing) and it has also kindled a desire to read much more about personality types. All the emotional vampires are in the book, and it is the only book I have read on the subject which makes it clear that they can be a mix of more than one type and that we ALL show some tendencies towards one or another pattern. A refreshing perspective with quizzes to test out personality traits. THIS BOOK WILL HELP YOU SEE THE LIGHT IF YOU ARE EMOTIONALLY DRAINED AND YOU CANT FATHOM WHY! Buy it now!

Important: a vampire is not a human being...
This is one book I wish I'd read before venturing, happily but naively, into the dim and murky world of the emotional vampire. But then, of course, none of this could possibly apply to the charming, gorgeous creature sharing my life. What a ridiculous thought! The poor thing has had a lot of tough breaks, and just needs a little help, right? Nobody's perfect. We can all use a little support. What's friendship for, let alone love? Yeah, lean on me, babe. I'm here for you... The next thing I know, a gradual sense of the surreal slowly begins to pervade my life. I find myself trying to figure stuff out all the time. What was that she said? Why did she say that? Why would someone do that? Is it me? Am I missing something? My mind going round and round in ever decreasing circles. Little did I know this is the first symptom of blood loss.

I enjoyed this book even though it's quite a while since I managed to escape, dragging my poor depleted body through the Transylvanian woods to freedom and slowly regaining my sanity. Bernstein is the emotional equivalent of Van Helsing and this book is the string of garlic you need to hang around your neck. He writes well with much wisdom and a few laughs thrown in and there were many 'Aha!' moments for me.

Good as it is, I feel that this book will be most useful for victims outside of intimate relationships. God forbid that your significant other is an emotional vampire. The effects are devastating, extremely damaging and the abuse of friendship and love (much worse than physical abuse in my opinion) takes years to get over. The important thing to grasp is that these creatures are NOT human in the sense that most 'normal' people would understand. By definition, a vampire is not a human being. These people are parasites inhabiting the weird and batty world of the undead. I am not joking. This is a difficult concept to explain if you haven't been in a relationship with one.

If you even suspect that your significant other is a vampire - there's only ONE thing you can do if you want to avoid more blood loss and keep your sanity. Run like hell in the opposite direction. And keep on running.

Eerily accurate
The tone is tongue-in-cheek, but the criteria the author lays out surprisingly spot on! For anyone who's been emotionally drained (as I've been for the past few years), you'll recognize the diagnosis immediately. What I like about the book is the author's pro-active stand in offering solutions to present problems, rather than pleading with us (as most self-help books tend to do) to empathise with the aforesaid vampire's emotional problems. Understanding their problems is one thing, allowing yourself to be trapped by those very problems is another. Worth the investment, if only to know that you're not mean or mad by wanting to get rid of these (apparently) sweet and loving creatures.