Personality Disorders and Mental Illnesses: The Truth About Psychopaths, Sociopaths, and Narcissists

I'm not a professional, however I've done quite a bit of research on this subject and I'm always fascinated by anyone's views. I found this book insightful and straight to the point. An easy read. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a high level understanding.

An excellent introduction to understand the different personality disorders. I have noticed a lot of talk about ‘narcissism’ and ‘personality disorders’ lately, and I can see it happening as I watch the relationships of people around me. The disastrous impact these people seem to have is scary. However I wanted to understand more about these terms that seem to be entering a lot of conversations lately, which led me to this book. I really appreciate how clearly the author differentiates between mental illness and personality disorders, as that is a distinction that hasn’t been clear to me. I found the part on Narcissism particularly interesting, and I liked how it had a section on ‘Developing Self-Esteem Instead of Narcissism’. The fact that narcissism seems to be growing and spreading faster is disturbing! The book even has ‘tests’ you can do (like a checklist), which I think is actually a great idea! It made me really think about both myself and certain other people I know. This book did an excellent job of explaining these disorders, and both the similarities and differences between them. It’s actually empowered me in my life to know who I need to be aware of, and how I can put boundaries in place with those people to keep myself safe. If you are at all interested in these disorders, or if you suspect someone in your life has any of these characteristics, then I highly recommended this book.

Good information, easy to process.

As a primer on various personality disorders, I highly recommend it for the lay reader and the student. It is very easy to understand, it's devoid of the usual case studies, and it is very light (Approx 150 pages). It highlights the various disorders and the traits one should look for or be aware of. the author took pains to point out what we seen television or the movies is usually wrong and he endeavors to set the record straight. I would say though he does repeat in some sections (A standard teaching aid), one would be shocked to see how much information can be found in such a small work. he pares it down to the bare essentials while taking gerat care not to leave any symptoms out.

Overall a good read if primary and secondary psychopathy are what drew you to the book. If you are reading it more for the bit on narcissism, though, or on NPD you’ll probably be disappointed. Editing work for the book was not done well—there is an entire paragraph repeated and loads of typographical errors. With regard to Rivers’ content it appears as though he has some characteristics of psychopaths and sociopaths reversed. While I recognize that experts on this topic, such as myself, may disagree with each other, I have studied the behaviors of 1 purported primary, as well as 1 purported secondary, psychopath for decades. My findings have been consistent with literature which states that psychopaths are careful planners and are less prone reactive impulsivity than sociopaths. Also, psychopaths complete tasks as opposed to sociopaths who tend to leave them unfinished. These are findings which Rivers apparently disagrees with according to this written work. This book has great content. It’s just that it feels patchy, it’s inconsistent, and the section on narcissism is lacking to the point where it should have been edited out altogether. Also, the last of the narcissism section feels preachy and a bit off-putting.

I was in a personal relationship with a sociopath for 4 years. I knew something was very wrong with that person but was not sure what exactly. I was abused and manipulated by that person and finally broke up with him. When I was reading this book, it made me very emotional remembering constant abuse, manipulation, cheating & lying by my sociopathic ex. This book described him to a tee. Im thankful for this book and hope it will help others identify and protect themselves from sociopaths & psychopaths.

I'm studying to be a therapist and I've thrown myself into learning all I can about perosonality disorders as that is my passion. This book lines up really well with all the stuff I had learned from other books and professors while providing me with some new information. This book is written in a way that's easy to understand and I think everyone should read this.

This is an in-depth book that explains mental illness in such a way that anyone can understand it and feel for anyone suffering from it. The author begins by explaining what exactly mental illness is and how someone “gets” it. Then the book moves into the the types of mental illness. Whether it be a personality disorder, depression or what have you, everything is explained very well in this book. Even signs and symptoms. There is a section that explains the difference between psychopathy and psychosis and psychopathy and personality disorders. In addition there are some famous criminals mentioned so you understand the gravity of their psychosis. This book was well written and very informative.

Brilliant and well written. Really informative and interesting. I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down. Amazing insights into the psychology behind these disorders.

Very good explanation of human behaviour!!!

Book was very informative and thorough read, I would definitely recommend it if your dealing with someone mentally unwell I'd give it a read

Very fascinating and insightful. Easy to read and helpful in identifying and coping with a person who is a narcissist.

Basically, just go online and you will get more detailed and accurate descriptions about the different personality disorders discussed in this book. I was amazed how simplistic this author approaches the different behavior of people with certain mental disorders. For exemple, he did compare a psychopath to a sociopath; but he seems to have them backward. Indeed, to him a psychopath is kind of a hot headed person who just cannot resist to his impulsivity vs a sociopath who would be very clever and calculating. If you checked the internet sites of "web md" and "psychology today", their descriptions of these mental disorders by doctors are the opposite of what it is in this book. The psychopath would be the clever one compared to a sociopath, not he other way around as in this book. Anyhow, this book which only has 147 small pages only appears to me as a mean for an author to make a quick buck; so I would not recommend it. Anybody can write a book like this just by checking a few internet sites. Indeed, I cannot help noticing a flagrant lack of investigative work in it...!!!