This is a psychological study of charmers, con artists, and their hidden alter-ego, the abusers -- how they got that way, various profile examples, and how to recover from their artistry of killing you softly with their charm.
HE DRAWS YOU IN. HE DRAWS EVERYBODY IN. He is seductive and intoxicating. He has an unusual talent for ingratiating himself to others. He twists the truth and tells you what you want to hear but doesn’t follow through. He manipulates and deceives. He justifies his behavior. He appears to be a humble hero but, in fact, is self-absorbed with a need to control how others perceive him. But nobody else sees what you see. It is all so subtle. You are not even sure you are right about what you think you are seeing. You may be dealing with a charmer or a con artist. Con artists rob you of your time, energy, and money. Charmers are brilliant at disguising their abuse and can steal your youth, integrity, self-esteem, and even your very soul. Author and counselor Sandra Scott helps identify and distinguish between the two in her book, Hidden Abusers: Charmers & Con Artists. The book focuses on charmers and profiles case studies of these abusers, helping you discern threats to you in your relationships. From fictional characters, such as Scarlett O’Hara, to real-life scenarios, like O. J. Simpson, Scott provides profiles and gives insights into this abusive behavior. Hidden Abusers also includes a recovery plan on how to move from being a victim to a thriving survivor. Scott draws from the Twelve-Step Program and the Bible to help you become the whole person God designed you to be. Written for individuals and for church leaders and laypersons, Hidden Abusers is a valuable resource for recognizing abusers and for healing from the mental, emotional, and spiritual trauma left in their wake. If victims are not believed and validated, and don’t receive help, they are revictimized. They can be lost to the church.
In his late sixties, Sydney Kelpie decides to return to the southwest Colorado ranch on which he was raised and his family still keeps as a historic site. He comes to search through his and his familys diaries to determine if his memories coincide with the entries after his birth in 1945. He finds his past writings and goes on to describe his youth punching cattle and his early days as a soldier in South Vietnam in 1967.
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.
New York Times bestselling author, television personality, and host of the #1 podcast "Paper Ghosts," M. William Phelps is one of America's most celebrated true crime authorities. In WE THOUGHT WE KNEW YOU, he takes readers deep into the murder of Mary Yoder, a popular wife, mother, and healer in Upstate New York -- telling a gripping tale of a family drama, a determined investigation, and a killer with the face of an angel. In July 2015, Mary Yoder returned home from the chiropractic center that she operated with her husband, Bill, complaining that she felt unwell. Mary, health-conscious and vibrant, was suddenly vomiting, sweating, and weak. Doctors in the ER and ICU were baffled as to the cause of her rapidly progressing illness. Her loved ones--including Bill and their children, Adam, Tamryn, and Liana--gathered in shock to say goodbye. In the weeks that followed Mary's death, the grief-stricken family received startling news from the medical examiner: Mary had been deliberately poisoned. The lethal substance was colchicine, a chemical used to treat gout but extremely toxic if not taken as prescribed. Mary did not have gout. Another bombshell followed when the local sheriff's office received a claim that Adam Yoder had poisoned his mother. But Adam was not the only person of interest in the case. Pretty and popular Kaitlyn Conley, Adam's ex-girlfriend, worked at the Yoders' clinic. She'd even been at Mary's bedside during those last terrible hours. Still, some spoke of her talent for manipulation and a history of bizarre, rage-fueled behavior against anyone who dared to reject her. Had Kaitlyn and Adam conspired to kill Mary Yoder, or was the killer someone else entirely? In another twist, accusations were hurled at Bill Yoder himself, ricocheting blame in still another direction... Renowned investigative journalist M. William Phelps details this incredible story piece by piece, revealing a heartless plan of revenge--a scheme that would tear a family apart, divide a community, and result in two gripping, high-profile trials.
An extraordinary memoir about finding wonder in everyday life, from magician Nate Staniforth. Nate Staniforth has spent most of his life and all of his professional career trying to understand wonder--what it is, where to find it, and how to share it with others. He became a magician because he learned at a young age that magic tricks don't have to be frivolous. Magic doesn't have to be about sequins and smoke machines--rather, it can create a moment of genuine astonishment. But after years on the road as a professional magician, crisscrossing the country and performing four or five nights a week, every week, Nate was disillusioned, burned out, and ready to quit. Instead, he went to India in search of magic. Here Is Real Magic follows Nate Staniforth's evolution from an obsessed young magician to a broken wanderer and back again. It tells the story of his rediscovery of astonishment--and the importance of wonder in everyday life--during his trip to the slums of India, where he infiltrated a three-thousand-year-old clan of street magicians. Here Is Real Magic is a call to all of us--to welcome awe back into our lives, to marvel in the everyday, and to seek magic all around us.
You can’t afford to live casually, haphazardly. No matter your age, you were born into a plethora of expectations of what it means to be a woman. How easily we assume impoverished views of womanhood as we hoist beauty and desirability above the more enduring traits of self-possession and dignity. We tend to live as divided and distracted selves, allowing our bodies and minds to drift to opposite poles while swapping our pursuit of God for tamer, lesser loves. This collection of essays is more than a call to modesty or chastity. It is a thoughtful provocation to speak well, read often, make choices that reflect the character of God, and even to establish a theology of play or leisure. Being intentional with your choices, cultivating your intellect, and taking seriously your voice determines not only what kind of person you are, but also what kind of woman you will be. “[Unseduced and Unshaken] raises the bar for young Christian women...It’s a call for all Christian women to examine their personal faith presuppositions, deliberately choose a life of Biblical ‘dignity,’ and to not be frightened to allow ‘theology to inform our choices.’” Just Between Us, Summer 2013 issue
A rare, 15-year ethnography, this book follows the lives of individual, low-income African American youth from the beginning of high school into their early adult years. Levine shows how their interaction and experience with multiple institutions (family, school, community) and individuals (parents, friends, teachers, coaches, strangers) shape their hopes, fears, aspirations, and worldviews. The intersectionality of their social identities—how race, class, and gender come together to influence how they come to think about who they are—influences many behaviors that directly contradict their stated aspirations. Affected, too, by limited access to resources, these youths often take a path profoundly different from their stated values and life goals. Levine explores the volatility and constraints underlying their decision-making and behaviors. The book reveals the critical junctures and turning points shaping life trajectories, challenging many long-held assumptions about the persistence of racial inequality by offering new insights on the educational and occupational barriers facing young African Americans.
In a book that reframes the mental health debate, Robert L. Gallon challenges the widely-held notion that mental disorders are medical diseases. Drawing on his extensive experience as a psychologist who has worked with thousands of patients, he argues that there are no objective indicators of mental disorders and therefore no way of drawing a distinct line between people who have them and people who don't. He outlines an alternative to the disease model defined by nine dimensions of dysfunction that encompass the range of human dysfunctions typically classified as mental disorders. He explains the origin of these problems, not as chemical imbalances and genetic abnormalities, but as the complex interaction of biological, psychological and social factors, called the Biopsychosocial model. Gallon explains the history of psychiatry and how it came to develop a medical model that codifies mental disorders in the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), now in its fifth edition. He demonstrates how, in 1950s and 1960s when the miracle psychiatric drugs came on the market, it was to the great economic advantage of both pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrists to describe people's problems in the language of medicine. His alternative to this disease model suggests descriptive types--Reality Misperception, Mood Dysfunction, Anxiety, Cognitive Competence, Social Competence, Somatoform Dysfunction, Substance Dependence, Motivation and Impulse Control, and Socialization Dysfunction--that we can construct to discuss the kinds and severities of problems people experience. These are not discrete abnormalities, but are sorts of dysfunction that can be placed on dimensions of dysfunction. Table of Contents Part I History of Madness 1. Introduction and Some Definitions 2. How madness became Medical 3. The Rise of Psychiatric Diagnosis 4. An Alternative Model Part II Dimensions of Madness 5. Reality Misperception 6. Mood Dysfunction 7. Anxiety 8. Cognitive Competence 9. Social Competence 10. Somatoform Dysfunction 11. Substance Dependence 12. Motivation and Impulse Control 13. Socialization Dysfunction Part III Treatment and Other Issues 14. What is Mental Health Treatment? 15. The Future
When, as a consequence of an automobile accident, sisters Patsy and Kate discover remarkable wall paintings of roses in a ramshackle old house, they are tormented by the realization that the paintings will be lost if the house is destroyed. Their obsession with saving the house, and therefore the paintings, results in possible danger as new friends lead them into the surprising world of international art. Their horizons expand as the mystery surrounding the paintings gradually unfolds, and their personal worlds are thereby enlarged and enriched in unexpected ways.