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    • Articles by Jane McGregor

    Jane McGregor

    Jane McGregor

    Jane McGregor, Ph. D.  is a freelance researcher and author. She was an assistant professor at Nottingham University for many years but now works freelance, devoting her time to writing books about dealing with sociopathic abuse, addiction and other entrenched behaviour, and health behaviour change. She is author of Drink and the City (Nottingham University Press, 2012), co- author of The Empathy Trap: Understanding Antisocial Personalities (Sheldon Press, 2013), and Coping with Difficult Families (Sheldon Press, 2014). Her latest book is titled Coping with Aggressive Behaviour (Sheldon Press, 2017).

    Categories

    Breaking Up With A Sociopath
    02Dec

    Breaking Up With A Sociopath
    Jane McGregor
    couple, divorce, sociopath
    Relationships
    Are you in a relationship where you are always in the wrong and chaos is the norm? Your partner doesn’t show any concern for anyone other than themselves and has extreme antisocial tendencies?   The chances are you are in a relationship with a sociopath. Sociopaths don’t care if they hurt, bully or maim. They have no conscience and show no remorse. Exiting a relationship of this sort can be painful and difficult but being aware of our former behaviours helps us gain insight, which in turn helps keep us from getting inadvertently (re)trapped in a cycle of...
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    Why Won't We Help Each Other Out?
    31Aug

    Why Won't We Help Each Other Out?
    Jane McGregor
    empathy, psychology
    Soul
    What prompts us to ignore the distress of other people? We’ve all found ourselves in situations - the times we’ve seen someone taunted and didn’t intervene; when we’ve driven past a car that has broken down, assuming another driver would pull over to help. We’ve noticed a young man slumped on the pavement, and not gone over to check if he’s okay. We witness a problem; consider doing something, then respond by doing... nothing. Something holds us back. So why don’t we help in these situations? Apathy can immobilise us when we feel the impulse to flee and help at the...
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    Can You Be Too Empathetic?
    06Aug

    Can You Be Too Empathetic?
    Jane McGregor
    empathy
    Mind
    Do you experience overwhelming feelings when confronted with lots of other people? Do people, even strangers, pour out their hearts to you? Do you care more about other people’s feelings and well-being than your own? If so you may be highly empathetic. Individuals with a highly empathetic temperament are often kind and caring, putting others before themselves. However, these talents can be viewed as weaknesses, as empathetic people are overly sensitive to others’ remarks and actions. They are too alert to the suffering of others and suffer on their behalf....
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    How Apathy Blocks Empathy
    16Jul

    How Apathy Blocks Empathy
    Jane McGregor
    empathy, psychology
    Mind
    Empathy is vital for cooperation and friendship. Without empathy there would be no humanity, just a world of disparate individuals without the social glue to hold them together. Empathy is the experience of understanding another person's perspective – you place yourself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling. When we empathise we not only mirror the distress of the other person, but are moved to respond in helping ways. In other words, empathy helps us take care of one another. When we are distressed by the suffering of others, that distress becomes...
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    Dealing with Difficult Family Members
    30Apr

    Dealing with Difficult Family Members
    Jane McGregor
    family, psychology, stress
    Relationships
    Do you have difficult family members, someone who doesn’t always make for good company? Take 45-year old Simon. He’s been married to Ali for 15 years, and though she loves him, she struggles to cope with his irritating ways. Why does he spend so many hours a day by himself,  most often hidden away playing computer games? And when they do go out, he can’t seem to hold a proper conservation without getting flustered. She can’t stand the way he procrastinates all the time, and is irritable whenever she asks him to do things to help her out. She is fed up that, as she puts it,...
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    Are You in a Relationship With a Narcissist?
    07Feb

    Are You in a Relationship With a Narcissist?
    Jane McGregor
    couple
    Relationships
    All of us can be selfish at times, but some of us are selfish all of the time! There’s nothing wrong with a little ‘me-time’, but some people are so self-preoccupied that they're unable to form healthy relationships. If that sounds like your partner, you may be in a relationship with a narcissist. Narcissists, in bygone days called megalomaniacs or severely egocentric, are people who spend the entire time wrapped up in themselves. Narcissism occurs in a spectrum of severity. In its more extreme form it is narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which affects...
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    Is Your Partner a Sociopath?
    23Jan

    Is Your Partner a Sociopath?
    Jane McGregor
    couple, psychology, sociopath
    Relationships
    Sociopaths are people with little or no conscience or ability to empathize with other peoples’ feelings. One sociopath in the course of their lifetime will harm many people but hurt most those with whom they have intimate and close relations. Although many operate as seeming ‘model citizens’, behind the façade they have interpersonal deficits such as grandiosity, arrogance and deceitfulness, lack of guilt and empathy, and impulsive and occasionally criminal behaviours. It’s easy to miss these traits in someone you love because you are not expecting to see them....
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    How to Spot a Sociopath at Work
    30Dec

    How to Spot a Sociopath at Work
    Jane McGregor
    career, sociopath
    Work
    You could be working with a sociopath. Does your usually charming colleague ever surprise you with the ease with which they make ruthless decisions? Do you have a boss who loves to humiliate people in meetings? Have you been on the receiving end of a campaign of harassment at work because you challenged the work practices of your colleague? Have you had a colleague take credit for your idea and pass it off as his/her own?  Estimates suggest that one in every 25 people in the world is a sociopath. Many people think sociopaths are cold-blooded murderers, but in fact...
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