Dangerous Personalities

An FBI Profiler Shows You How to Identify and Protect Yourself from Harmful People

By: Joe Navarro, Toni Sciarra Poynter

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

We seem to wake up to a new tragedy in the news every day - Newtown, Boston, Aurora, Columbine. So often the reporters say that "there were some signs, but nobody acted". The scary part about these tragedies is that less than one percent of criminals are incarcerated for their crimes, meaning that for every headline, there are millions of dangerous situations in which average people find themselves. On top of that, how can ordinary people identify threats from those who may not hurt them physically, but can devastate their lives on a daily basis - the crazy coworkers, out-of control family members, or relentless neighbors? In Dangerous Personalities, former FBI profiler Joe Navarro shows listeners how to identify the four most common "dangerous personalities", and analyze how much of a threat each one can be: the Narcissist, the Predator, the Paranoid, and the Unstable Personality. Along the way, listeners learn how to protect themselves both immediately and long-term - as well as how to recover from the trauma of being close to such a destructive force.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2014 Joe Navarro (P)2014 Audible Inc.

A Bad Conscience

As far as just the facts ma'am...Navarro does a good job giving a detailed, no frills outline of psychopathy. It reminded me a little of watching one of those films in high school where everything is boiled down to rudimentary facts..."if a, b, c, d are present then you may be dealing with a psychopath. You're life is in danger. Get help immediately..." He knows his material and presents it in an easy to understand format for any level of reader, though a bit bland and blunt, very textbook.

Navarro gives a criteria checklist at the end of each chapter, containing over 100 items; when you're done tallying your own score, or your neighbor's and friends, you are convinced you are all psychopaths -- a problem inherent in these armchair psychology books. But before you schedule analysis, or turn your neighbors into the FBI, consider what Professor Robert D. Hare has to say. Hare is the criminal psychologist responsible for the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised which has been adopted worldwide. Hare's assessment tool, in contrast, uses a list of 20 criteria:
"On average, someone with no criminal convictions scores 5. It’s dimensional" says Hare. “There are people who are part-way up the scale, high enough to warrant an assessment for psychopathy, but not high enough up to cause problems...“psycho-pathy”, the diagnosis, bleeds into normalcy."
If you are seriously interested in this subject, I highly recommend Hare's book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths. I sat in on several of his presentations while I was working in the field, and he was always fascinating. Navarro refers to Hare and the PCL-R often in this book.

Navarro is precise and accurate, narrates the book clearly, and his professional record clearly gives him authority in this field. He also responsibly advises readers with concerns to get professional advice. While he drops a few names that we all relate to heinous crimes, (Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, Jerry Sandusky, John Wayne Gacy) I felt he missed the chance to tie in the predators with their profiles which would have more narrowly defined the many traits on his lists. His professional/cautionary approach make this book read more like an informative report than the really chilling and interesting read it could have been.

Solid content, melodic narrator.

Content is great for the most part. I've done other of Navarro's books that are a bit more applicable to daily life. The checklists at the end of each chapter are extensive and thorough.

Narrator has a melodic rhythm that he doesn't break for the entire narrative, regardless of what the appropriate inflection should be. Took me out of it a few times.

Just shoot me already, would ya?

Content is good. Solid details and information that doesn’t seem to be too dense. However, the narrators pace and syntax invoked suicidal ideations in this listeners case. It would go on to make the completion of the work almost unthinkable. Aside from that, the work is useful and intriguing. Giving this reader some thought provoking moments. Entertaining? Yes. Useful? Yes. Enjoyable? Overall, yes, but with the caveat that it is best listened to after self-distribution of several large doses of anti-anxiety medication. Thanks for reading my review- rls 02/09/19

Sensing Danger became much easier

this books provides the foundation of knowing 4 of the most dangerous personalities which can harm you physically, mentally or emotionally

The guy’s voice is creepy

I have been listening to this for 20 minutes and I’m not sure I can keep going because this guy’s voice is just creepy.