In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People

No matter who you are, a businessman, therapist, or school teacher, in time will find your life impacted my those who would try to manipulate you. Some people use manipulation in rare instances to gain temporarily advantage, however, others will manipulate often, often without others knowledge. To that end, it is important to understand the traits of manipulative people and to learn their techniques. George Simon has created a book designed to help therapists and non-therapists alike understand and learn to survive around manipulative people. By reading this book, you will gain tools to better understand and survive around manipulative people.

Don't be a sucker. There. I've just saved you from having to listen to this book. The basic idea is that some people are just bad because they want to be bad and they are not going to change. We need to stop thinking that their misbehavior is actually some misguided, inappropriate attempt to meet some unmet childhood need. Most of the book is spent debunking that myth. This book basically gives people permission to write these destructive personalities out of our lives, to understand that we can not change them. There's no magic to identifying them. The rule of thumb is that if you get that vibe, then you're probably right. That's it. Everything else in the book is fluff and filler.

First of all, go read all the gorgeous reviews on amazon for the printed version. It's a very popular book. In short, it goes into describing toxic people, their strategies for manipulating others and the weaknesses they exploit. And it offers strategies for dealing with them.

The reason I think this book is a must read is because we come across these toxic personalities more often than we think we do. They can really destroy your life in a very subtle way, so that you would barely feel this. The book offers an essential knowledge that any good person needs in order to survive.

Covert Aggressive Personality Disorder: Sometimes you get the key to a code which gives an AHA! moment. We have ALL dealth with difficult people and wondered how to handle them, but like a ghost in the night they can be very elusive and very tricky.

Firstly one has to get over self doubts and realize that these creatures exist. After that one has to identify who they are and how they play their games. And their games can be very nasty and toxic indeed and build up to a fatal destructive level. This really is a pernicious relationship destroying problem, which needs to be recognised and controlled post haste whenever it arises, if harmony is going to be restored.

The point is to realize it and recognise it. I gratefully thank the author and also recommend "Working With Monsters' by Dr John Clarke as an enlightening source of further reading.

Maxwell

We have all been victimized by manipulators. George K. Simon sets out in his book In Sheep’s Clothing to shed light on manipulators and reveal what can be done to protect ourselves from those persons. He also applies current thinking and research on manipulative behavior to these relationships. This is not a self-help book though it will provide much help individuals can use. This is rather, a book on manipulative behavior from which readers can make applications where they might personally apply. Simon doesn’t write about adults, but also includes children and teens who might be manipulating their parents, teachers, or others. The book particularly helped me to recognize when I might be the target of manipulation and how I should behave in return. A few passages rely on psychological terms which may put some readers off. However, they are minor and should not detract from the overall benefit available to the reader who pays attention. Readers who are looking to understand WHY manipulators do what they do, may be disappointed. Readers seeking to recognize manipulation when they experience it will be justly rewarded. The reading of Kevin Foley is ery good.

Yes, to learn by heart the strategies offered in this book to manage the umpredictability of character disorders.

There was no favourite character since this is not that kind of book. But I must praise Dr Simon for his uncanning insightfulness into the human psyche.

The clear and frightening description and vignetes about covert agression and manipulation. It was like revisiting some of my life experiences with some very disturbed characters.

Yes, indeed!

This is a must read or listen to 'amazing book'. It equips individuals to identify and take protective and affirmative action in the presence of manipulation and covert agression. It clearly describes the typical characteristics of individulas with character disorders and their modus operandi. I would recommend this reading even to young people (over 16). The contents of this book also serve as a mirror to the reader to assess her/his own character and behaviors in the light of individuals who habitually fall on manipulation tactics and covert agression. No human being is immune from practising agression or manipulation at some point in their lives. However, there is an abysmal difference between the habitual practice of covert agression and manipulation and the odd use of the latter. This book aims and does expose the habitual covert agression and manipulation that pervades across all social sections of the population; from family, school, friendships, workplace and the list goes on. I have felt not only equiped to manage manipulative situations but also I felt liberated as I understood aspects of myself that required change to survive the attacks of manipulative and agressive individuals.

It is impossible to change covert agressors and manipulators, specially those who have made an art of their craft. However, it is very possible to change oneself as we identify, resist, confront and denounce manipulation. As Dr Simon says, there are consequences when one takes decisive action. Individuals with character disorders as such do not take kindly being confronted as they dislike 'to loose'. However, the cost is worthwhile. Drawing a line in the sand is necessary to be able to survive psychologically and emotionally in society. There is a saying that goes like this: 'if you don't stop yourself, others will'. We live in a heard-like society. It is time to stop those who cause so much havoc in society and in numbers of good individuals there is power. As Dr Simon states, there has been a misconception about the perception of character disorders and this is changing now. Let us call manipulation when we see it as such, for it is an attempt to gain ground and a higher position of dominance over others. Let us uncover covert agression and name it for what it is, a way to intimidate others into submission.

This book was able to break down some very complex and difficult ideas for a lay person to understand about the different degrees of a sociopathic personality and that they are all over our lives and society not just in prisons. There are many degrees of this personality. Describing these types of people and understanding that we know MANY of them. Our culture is creating people who think they can get away with anything they want and never have to subject themselves to consequences. They do this in both a public setting and in their private lives. If you happen to be in a significant relationship, you soon find out that if you ever dare confront them with their inappropriate behavior, you will soon reap the piles of excuses, the evasive maneuvers they use to turn it around and blame you, or worse, their wrath for daring to even think or insinuate they did anything wrong. Simon's ideas, if considered in our modern mental health culture, will revolutionize it. It's no longer about fear-based paradigms as Freud and other fathers of our mental health culture has assumed, but rather, many modern individuals don't have enough fear. They don't fear laws or consequences or the fallout their behavior inflicts on the people around them. Sociopaths (people without a moral compass or empathy) come in all shapes and forms and degrees... they are not just people in prisons. Our culture even rewards this type of personality in the tops of our societal food chains. They are our brothers, sisters, fathers, bosses, leaders, icons, etc. They can even be our kids who we raised to have so much self-esteem they no longer respect adults and authority or rules and laws. Simon even lays out an explanation of the ADD/ADHD epidemic. This problem is society's consequence for no longer holding up values and morals as the ideal. The contents of this book needs to be in our society's everyday language and especially in our modern mental health culture.

Absolutely! If you like to know the how's and the why's, and I guess moreover, what you can do strategically in dealing with certain personality types (i.e. manipulative in nature), then this book is worth a listen.

The author - what a brilliant mind!

Wonderful narrator - adds to the seriousness of dealing with covertly aggressive people.

The topic is interesting. There seem to be more people with small or no conscience about, and it is useful to know how to spot them and avoid them. I didn't think the topic was developed to enough depth. Instead of elaborating on some of the case studies, the author kept bringing up new ones, and dealing with the surface details to reinforce the same ideas.

Probably wouldn't listen again.

Clear narration, but not very lively. Performance was monotonous.

No.

It's a shame that such a good topic should be given such short shrift.

and expecting a different result...for example, buying pop psychology books on how to deal with manipulative people. I officially give up on this genre. Where do I begin? The author rejects Freud's basic theory of neurosis for denizens of the post-Victorian era, but then steeps many of his basic ideas in outdated Freudian and neo-Freudian ideology, right down to dream interpretation. Then he throws a long line of grotesquely stereotypical female neurotics to the evil clutches of an endless line of grotesquely stereotypical abusive husbands, rapacious (male) bosses, bratty kids (who, by the way, are only imitating their fathers) and sadistic testoserone-driven super villians in order to make his facile, one-sided points from which we will be able to learn how overly-simplistic solutions will give these poor women (and presumably, his readers) the lives they have always deserved, all for the price of his little book with the clever cover. (He does everything but pass out white and black hats to the characters in his examples.) O, right... there is one manipulative woman in the workplace scenerio, but Simon does apologize for that one.


So what now that I have scrounged the bottom of the barrel for the last self-help book on how not to get messed over in my life?

Maybe FRAZIER fans will remember the advice "Dr. Nora" gave to a caller who asked her what he could do about a manipulative co-worker. "Not a damn thing," she purled with a sinister smile. "Not one damn thing." Perhaps she was right.