1 EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES AT WORK: GETTING TO KNOW

Short Notes From:

EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES AT WORK

Dealing with Bosses and Coworkers Who Brain You Dry

Albert J. Bernstein, PhD.

McGraw Hill Education

258 pages

 

Work is different now. They have changed considerately. Emotional vampires have become more powerful and even more dangerous. Thus you must know how to protect yourself. The book try to describe the most difficult and draining people you will encounter at work and tell you what to do to gain some control over your interactions with these vampires.

          The organizational world is full of emotional vampires, even at the very top. They have the ability to change shape and cloud the minds. No matter where you work, you cannot escape them. Vampires are dangerous predators. They evaporated by sunlight. They are much exiting and attractive than other people.

People with personality disorders, like vampires, are, first and foremost, different. They seem so much better than regular people. Vampire certainly do things that hurt other people. Knowledge is the only protection.

Emotional vampires are indeed children. They have not matured enough to feel empathy. Like infants, they believe other people are not people like them, but instead are objects to fill their needs. Infants are very good at getting their needs met, but infantile adults are even better. One minute they can be as charming and ingratiating as children; the next minutes, they can be just as heedless of other people’s feelings and just as intolerant of anything that stands between them and what they want.

Emotional vampires may be immature and psychologically impaired, but they are not dysfunctional people. Because of their almost supernatural ability to look good, they are first on the list to be hired or promoted.

When emotional vampires are in positions of authority, the cultures of the departments and organizations they control take on aspects of their personalities. To protect yourself, you will have to recognize them and understand how they think. There are 5 most likely different personalities’ disorders to cause trouble at work:

          1. Antisocial

          2. Histrionic

          3. Narcissistic

          4. Obsessive-compulsive, and

          5. Paranoid

Everyone has some symptoms. Even normal people have a few little quirks. Emotional vampires are people you probably will fine at work. They are not psychopaths, but still they are dangerous enough to cause plenty of trouble if you don’t recognize them.

The most useful way to understand people with personality’s disorders is to recognize the hunger that motivates them. Their singular drive is the secret of their success and failure. If you know what to expect, then you can defend yourself.

Knowing the vampires is necessary, but it’s not sufficient for protection. You must know yourself; your own personality style will offer its own particular strengths and weaknesses in dealing with the various vampire types.

An important part of protecting yourself from emotional vampires understands you. Who you are and how you think will greatly influence how much damage they can do.

Emotional vampires usually make strong first impressions. We tend to see them as the best, the worst, the most different or all of the above. Vampires are hard to ignore. Antisocial are exciting. Histrionic can make you believe that your dreams are coming true, or they can outrage you with their blatant manipulation. Narcissists can arouse grudging administration as well as out-and-out hatred for acting like they’re better than you. Obsessive-compulsives can turn you into a rebellious teenager who hates being told what to do. Paranoids evoke trust and blind belief.

Emotional vampires can be transforming you also. The psychological term for this stepwise process is grooming. Vampires are natural hypnotists. Hypnosis means using the power of suggestion to project an alternative reality that is too good to be true or too scary to ignore. Once you recognize emotional vampires, you need to know what to do to protect yourself.

To be continued……

Coming up next: types of emotional vampires