Editorial Review:Product Description:Who is the devil
you know?
Is it your lying, cheating ex-husband?
Your sadistic high school gym teacher?
Your boss who loves to humiliate people in meetings?
The colleague who stole your idea and passed it off as her own?
In the pages of
The Sociopath Next Door, you will realize that your ex was not just misunderstood. He’s a sociopath. And your boss, teacher, and colleague? They may be sociopaths too.
We are accustomed to think of sociopaths as violent criminals, but in
The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people—one in twenty-five—has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. One in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, is secretly a sociopath. They could be your colleague, your neighbor, even family. And they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.
How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They’re more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced. Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others’ suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.
The fact is, we all almost certainly know at least one or more sociopaths already. Part of the urgency in reading
The Sociopath Next Door is the moment when we suddenly recognize that someone we know—someone we worked for, or were involved with, or voted for—is a sociopath. But what do we do with that knowledge? To arm us against the sociopath, Dr. Stout teaches us to question authority, suspect flattery, and beware the pity play. Above all, she writes, when a sociopath is beckoning, do not join the game.
It is the ruthless versus the rest of us, and
The Sociopath Next Door will show you how to recognize and defeat the devil you know.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
-
...how about the sociopath in the next office?
Having just been fired by a sociopath and her manager - also a sociopath - this book hit me squarely between the eyes. Ouch!
I skimmed this book quickly. The first part of the book on conscience was rather lengthy, in my opinion, although I'm sure some will find it very enlightening. The conscience discussion at the end of the book was more practical...for me.
One of the best parts of the book - for me - is the Thirteen Rules for Dealing with Sociopaths in Everyday Life. As with Borderline Personality Disordered people, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to refuse to allow these people to have any influence in our lives whatsoever. Set boundaries that exclude them...without them knowing that we are purposefully doing so...read the book to see why. My supervisor was cunning, baffling, and very, very powerful...after all, she fired me.
Her superiors who should have known better...Human Resources, her Manager, the CFO and CEO...allowed her to slide right on through to a homerun because she is such a master manipulator. The way I see it is: CEO's and HR Departments have an obligation to guarantee a safe work environment for their employees. My work environment wasn't safe, for many reasons. The CEO failed, the HR Department failed. No surprise, they have failed many to date.
I especially benefitted from the more concrete Rules portion because it was like Sociopathy 101 and how to deal with them. The last rule: Living Well is the Best Revenge really hits home for me. The only way to get this slimey stuff out of your system is to give all that negative slime over to a Higher Power. Then, let go and let God...and be determined to live a wonderful life, and be humbly thankful that this person is no longer in your life.
I admit that, several years earlier, I had some reservations about her and her husband, and the way that I saw them shame their little boy in my presence. He has Attention Deficit Disorder, and at the time, it was an ongoing problem for him at school. The dad shamed him arrogantly and mercilessly, over and over. I was mortified by his lack of sensitivity. The little boy looked so downtrodden and ashamed. There was no need for this...except, possibly his dad is also a sociopath? Of course, both of them would be oblivious to any feelings that their son might have. The book validates my experience on this one.
I see that their little boy seems to fit into the chapter on the (painful) boredom experienced by sociopaths when they are unable to keep stirring the pot to create the extra stimulation they crave. Imagine how "valuable" a 'problem' child can be for the sociopathically challenged! If you have a 'problem child' you can continue to berate him daily, and savor the sad look on his face while you do it. Add a little dash of physical violence. It provides the stimulating domination that sociopaths crave. According to the book, a situation like this creates a sort of high...like an addiction. And, if a sociopath isn't able to create a crisis or chaos on an ongoing basis, she has a sort of meltdown, which is very painful for them. Like an anxious vampire always on the lookout for the next victim.
I could sense this in my supervisor over the past 6 months. She was getting very restless and began testing the waters to see what she could get away with, doing it a little more agressively each time. Sure enough, the book validates this.
The book claims that sociopaths do not have a conscience. It discusses 'conscience' as a component of love. Without love, all we humans are capable of is to 'possess' or dominate, rather than to love. It explains how we need to strive to always be raising our conscience to the next level.
It gives the example of a diverse group of people who have purposefully developed their conscience, how this has contributed to the level of increased satisfaction in their lives. These people are more focused on the welfare of their fellow human beings. (Mother Theresa comes to mind for me) This is so beautiful! This portion of the book made me think about the quality of my own life...in a positive, enlightening way. This feels right on target to me. Thanks, Martha.
This book helped me sort through the circumstances. My perceptions had been accurate with what I had observed and felt intuitively about these people and their very bad behavior.
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Good info, interesting
Overall, the book provided some very interesting (& helpful) info regarding sociopathy. I thought the writing was a bit convoluted and unncessarily obscure at times, and there were some sections that were too "psychological" for the lay person. Other than that, it certainly provided additional education on this very dangerous, and often insidious, disorder.
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Essential Reading
In the world of today, especially in the so-called "first world" societies, conscience ranks as one of the most important, yet undervalued qualities of humanity. The idea that all people possess some natural quality of inner morality that restrains their behaviour towards others is taken as a de facto understanding by most. This naturalistic world view suffices for most relationships but can cause serious problems when dealing with those whose personalities formed with either inherited or acquired pathology. Sociopaths (the subject of Martha Stout's excellent book), exist within the spectrum of psychopathology that includes many other types of disorders (narcissism, BPD, psychopathy etc), and thus the book will interest anyone who has questions about relationships with egotistical, manipulative and vindictive people.
Ex-Harvard psychologist Martha Stout writes in a style pleasing and accessible to the layperson. One may feel a sense of her years of hard-won experience and understanding having structured the book in a way that anticipates unformed questions and provides answers in an easily-readable flow. Never dry, overly academic or condescending, Stout examines the philosophical and societal implications of the conscienceless with a sense of gentle yet serious gravity, and invites the reader to do the same.
The composite case studies convey effectively a range of traits and characteristics that a pathological personality can express. The reader may recognise many of these traits in others (and also oneself) - some might even appear as an "exact match" for a friend or partner! Most importantly, the composite cases provide a good example of how subtly sinister a sociopath can act. Much sociopathic and antisocial behaviour takes place "under the radar" of general social and legal conventions, with the consequences chiefly felt as some undefined sense of emotional or psychological violation by the victim.
As well as providing some warning signs and techniques for use in dealing with sociopaths, Stout devotes a good part of the book to an examination of conscience, morality and reasoning, concluding that following one's conscience shows the path to human happiness - a way that many religions and spiritual cultures have in common. Her synthesis and depth of thought in this area makes for refreshing reading.
In short - VERY highly recommended.
Those interested in further reading on the subject should also check out Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, Political Ponerology (A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes) and Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. These books provide excellent further reading on a subject that people really need to know more about - for their own protection.
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i see the light
great book-married one i got out alive but not unscathed. I would advise many people to read however I worry that those that are will read and continue to use our goodness against us .Remember to believe a person's actions not their words if they are inconsistent more than 3 times get out-read this book
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all people should read & heed
The book 'The Sociopath next Door' by Marths stout is a must read for everyone. I only wish I had had this book 30 years ago. She describes the Sociopath and the means to avoid them.
dblaine@sbcglobal.net
