Protecting Yourself from Emotional Predators: Neutralize the Users, Abusers and Manipulators Hidden Among Us Book Tour and Giveaway!

Book Details: Book Title:  Protecting Yourself from Emotional Predators: Neutralize the Users, Abusers and Manipulators Hidden Among Us Category:  Adult Non-Fiction Genre:  psychology, self-help, relationships, divorce Publisher:  Amare Press Release date:   January, 2019 Tour dates: Sept 9 to Sept 27, 2019 Content Rating: G  Book Description: Steven Wolhandler, JD, MA, LPC knows how abusive and manipulative people prey on the emotions of good people - and how good people can protect themselves. He offers a radically different view of these Emotional Predators and provides practical effective solutions. For Emotional Predators, life is a strategy game to dominate and control, and you are either a player to be defeated or a game piece to be used. Without empathy or remorse, they’ll ruin your life, and traditional approaches will make things worse. You’ll learn 5 essential steps for protecting yourself, valuable guidance for safe relationships and over 30 specific defensive tactics for:     Distinguishing romance from intimacy     Restoring your self-esteem     Removing your emotional triggers     Using gratitude and humor     Playing their games better than they do - without becoming like them     Screening professionals to be sure they can help     Regaining control in family court     Breaking an addiction to an Emotional Predator     Re-balancing power in your favor     Adjusting beliefs that keep you trapped     Responding strategically, instead of reacting emotionally BUY THE BOOK: Amazon * Tattered Cover Book Store Add to Goodreads​​​ Things to Know About Emotional Predators and Dating Emotional Predators are notorious for being beguiling and seductive, particularly with their new acquaintances.  This makes dating a favorite playground for Emotional Predators (along with the courts) where they use their skill at presenting an emotionally compelling, but false, facade to great advantage.  When getting to know a new person, an Emotional Predator immediately tunes into what the other person wants to see, and then she presents that persona. She also disarms the target’s defense and alarm systems by feeding the target an image of a person the target feels safe with.  Internet dating is particularly inviting to Emotional Predators because, without in-person contact to provide non-verbal clues, it’s child’s play for them to present online the words and “virtual” images of whatever the other person wants to see. On a date or online, a decent person getting to know someone else thinks he’s sharing personal things to develop intimacy.  But an Emotional Predator is mining him for information about what’s most important to him that she can use to manipulate him later.  An Emotional Predator will quickly know more about your core values and what is dearest to your heart than you do. An Emotional Predator’s use of information about you to manipulate and disarm you is why knowing core things about yourself is an essential part of a strong defense.  Chapters 3 and 4 of my book describe this in detail. Emotional Predators are the consummate charmers and entertainers of our world.  They are bewitching chameleons who change their facade to seduce and mislead as needed, presenting whatever image they think will most effectively get them what they want.  Particularly with new acquaintances, Emotional Predators will appear charming, seductive, fun and sincere. They charm you at the beginning to get you involved with them, and they keep charming outsiders to prevent anyone from helping you stop their abuse.  They play a game of “bait and switch,” first making it all about you and what you want, need and value - until you take the bait and get hooked. Then they switch to their real agenda and make everything all about them. A woman described her last boyfriend as “super generous, considerate and gentle” when he was courting her.  But soon after she let him move into her home, he became morose, started yelling and demanded she run his errands and clean up after him regardless of her work schedule. In my experience, if someone you meet seems too good to be true, they probably are. When you’re getting to know an Emotional Predator, he’ll agree with you a lot.  He’ll pretend to share interests and experiences, giving you the false feeling that you have “so much” in common and that he’s “just like” you.  If you care about water quality, it’ll be one of his concerns. If you’re into salsa dancing, he’ll have always wanted to take up dancing, but never met the right partner until you.  If you need to take care of vulnerable people, he’ll be concerned about the needy (or present himself as vulnerable). If you’re a sucker for a doe eyed “innocent,” he’ll make himself appear as innocent as a new born babe.  If you’re not moved by innocence, but are impressed by strong-willed savvy confidence, that’s the image of himself he’ll sell you. In fact, he’s nothing like you or the person you want or the persona he’s selling. If your radar for Emotional Predators’ deceptions isn’t finely tuned, you won’t find out soon enough. Once you’re involved with them, Emotional Predators will charm acquaintances and strangers as a way of isolating you and cutting you off from independent fact checking.  An Emotional Predator will lower a “cone of silence” (apologies to Mel Brooks) around you without your permission and for no legitimate reason. After he’s lured you in and you’ve taken the bait and you’re committed to being involved with him, he’ll begin to reveal his true selfish, abusive nature to you in private.  The more emotionally and financially dependent you are, the more free an Emotional Predator will feel to drop his charming seductive facade with you. As he drops his facade, he’ll shift his efforts to convincing you that the situation with him is normal and any discomfort you feel reflects something wrong with you. But he’ll meticulously maintain his charming facade to everyone else.  The parents at your children’s events, school personnel, neighbors, work colleagues, and family may tell you how lucky you are to be with such a great guy, and they may think you’re crazy if you suggest he’s selfish, domineering, manipulative or abusive in the privacy of your home. This is part of gaslighting, which is explained in detail in my book. A kind and honest man allowed himself to be seduced into an affair with a “fantastic” married woman.  She convinced him that she was the long suffering victim of her cold, bitter husband. She also insisted that, as her secret boyfriend, the kind man couldn’t talk to anyone about his relationship with her, certainly not anyone who might know her husband and their situation.  She discouraged the boyfriend from independent fact checking by warning him to protect her privacy within their circle of friends. She cleverly justified lowering this cone of silence around their relationship in part to protect her children from scandal. This meant the boyfriend couldn’t independently verify her core stories of herself as her husband’s victim.  So the boyfriend’s entire understanding of her situation with her husband was based only on what she told him. In fact, the cheating wife was an Emotional Predator victimizing both her husband and her boyfriend, and the boyfriend allowed himself to be cut off from independent information. In this situation, the boyfriend also repeatedly “opened his heart” to the wife, believing that he was creating intimacy, when he was just feeding her the information she needed to manipulate him. Emotional Predators are expert at playing on the goodness, inexperience, busyness, and fears of decent people.  Our tendency to see and believe only the evidence that supports the beliefs we already hold (called confirmation bias) inhibits our ability to look beyond our pre-conceived notions.  Most people don’t believe Emotional Predators are as bad as they are. Emotional Predators know this and use it when they lie to create a convincing, but false, positive image of themselves (and a negative image of their targets).  They know most people won’t see or believe even well-documented facts exposing them if those facts conflict with pre-existing beliefs about things like the inherent goodness of other people. You can trust that Emotional Predators will acknowledge and do only what they think will serve their interests.  When they do acknowledge or do something that appears to offer them no obvious benefit, be skeptical and look beneath the surface for the hidden benefit they see in it for themselves.  Sometimes what they’re really after isn’t so obvious. Looking closely at the possible selfish benefits that an Emotional Predator is after helps you understand and fend off a future manipulative maneuver.  Particularly in the early stages of dating, but in other phases of relationships as well, a naively trusting person will believe another person’s story until it’s proven untrue. But a wise person will remain skeptical until the other person is proved emotionally and otherwise trustworthy.  Be skeptical. Be savvy. Be safe. Written by Steven Wolhandler, author of Protecting Yourself from Emotional Predators.  (Copyright, Steven Wolhandler, 2019)

Meet the Author:

Steven Wolhandler, JD, MA, LPC is a psychotherapist, mediator, arbitrator, custody evaluator, national consultant and retired attorney. He has decades of experience dealing with, and learning from, difficult and manipulative people, and helping their victims with penetrating insight, effective solutions, warmth and humor. He lives in Colorado, consults with people internationally through www.creativeresolutions.org.

Connect with the author: Website​    Facebook       

BOOK TOUR SCHEDULE:
Sept 9 – A Mama's Corner of the World – book spotlight / giveaway
Sept 9 – Just Another Reader – book spotlightSept 11 – Rockin' Book Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Sept 12 – Locks, Hooks and Books – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Sept 13 – Books for Books – book spotlight
Sept 16 – Celticlady's Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Sept 16 - Phy Roselle – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Sept 17 – 100 Pages A Day – book spotlight
Sept 18 – Library of Clean Reads – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Sept 19 – Sefina Hawke's Books – book spotlight / giveaway
Sept 23 – JBronder Book Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Sept 24 – fundinmental – book spotlight / giveaway
Sept 25 – #redhead.with.book – book spotlight / giveaway
Sept 26 – Literary Flits – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway

Copying notice for Wolhandler’s guest blog posts

Please freely copy and distribute this post, but be sure to include that it was written by Steven Wolhandler, author of Protecting Yourself from Emotional Predators.  (It’s copyright, Steven Wolhandler, 2019) Thanks!

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