In psychiatric terms, a psychic vampire is someone who drains emotional energy without giving anything back, and can make the other person very tired, depressed, emotionally unbalanced, or worse, if too much is drained.

Emotional vampires only feed on certain emotions, just as others feed on anything they can. Usually, the bad ones will exert a strong mental control on the victim, and do as much as possible to provoke feelings of distress, shame, and sorrow.