Taming Toxic People

Psychopaths are often thought of as killers and rapists, but up to 10 per cent of people are probably psychopathic without being criminals. Science suggests psychopaths don’t have empathy. Although charming in the early stages of a relationship or employment, they will leave you feeling cheated and humiliated, will dominate and manipulate you, denying reality to the point where you question your sanity. Psychopaths derive power from creating chaos that renders the rest of us immobile with confusion and resentment.

The everyday psychopath is at best disruptive, and at worst highly dangerous to your day-to-day life. At a societal level, their presence in powerful positions can be disastrous. Psychopaths have always been around, Gillespie argues, but were traditionally constrained by social disapproval. But as community-building institutions dissolve, so does our ability to use social tools to constrain the psychopaths among us.

Taming Toxic People is a practical guide to restraining the difficult person in your life, be it your boss, your spouse or a parent. It is also a serious and meticulously researched warning if we value a free and well-functioning society: if we don’t understand and act to manage psychopathic behaviour, Trump is only the beginning.