The Psychopathy of Everyday Life: How Antisocial Personality Disorder Affects All of Us

Is there a mild psychopath near you? Or in you? If so, what can and should you do? Find out in this riveting exploration of a personality disorder usually dismissed by the mental health profession, and never before the topic of in-depth scholarly exploration. We all recognize the true, full-blown psychopaths—the Hitlers, Stalins and Gacys of the world. But what professionals and lay people, alike often do not recognize is that we are surrounded by mild psychopaths, people who do not reach the level of their infamous counterparts, yet still share some of their traits. Fifteen-time author Kantor, a psychiatrist whose last work, Understanding Paranoia, also zeroed in on everyday problems, explains how to recognize, understand and cope with the mild psychopaths one encounters every day.

Who are these everyday psychopaths? They are politicians who lie to get votes, swindlers who phish the Internet to steal identities, salesmen who push cars or other products they know are lemons, businessmen who dupe the public in ways that barely skirt the law, doctors who perform unnecessary surgery because they need the money. The list goes on. Some would argue that each of us must use some of the means of the mild psychopath to be successful in life. Where is the line, and what do you do when those around you cross it? The Psychopathy of Everyday Life helps you decide.

Kantor spotlights and disproves widely-held beliefs about mild psychopathy, then shows us methods to deal with such people, and such traits in ourselves. His conclusions and vignettes drawn from the treatment room and from everyday life, for example, show that psychopathy is a widespread problem, not one confined to low life' people in jails, or to men and women in mental hospitals. Psychopaths are not all failures in life who could be labled either bad' or mad;' many are quite successful and held up as models. And they are not all guilt-free with no conscience; some do want to escape their aggressive and socially harmful world where being honest, forthright and ethical is abnormal. Kantor offers an eclectic approach based on classic therapies to facilitate help and self-help methods for the victim and the psychopath.