The Sociopath Next Door

a book by Martha Stout, PhD

My basic understanding of personality disorders (like borderline or narcissistic) is that there is a lack of empathy. The anti-social personality disorder goes one step further. The sociopath has no conscience.

I'm not sure a diagnosis (if you were able to get one) matters. What matters is for YOU, the victim, to be able to IDENTIFY patterns of behavior, and have some grasp of why your communications with the person with the disorder fail so miserably. I think it pays to read up on these three: borderline, narcissistic and anti-social.

According to this author, most people HAVE a conscience gives them a general moral code to follow because of their compassion for other persons and animals. Conscience leads us to question ourselves, and feel guilt, shame or remorse. Conscience is the desire to do right things for right reasons, the imperative to be honest.

A person with a conscience (presumably you) is mystified by the behavior of a person without a conscience (presumably the sex addict). A sociopath has no moral code or "truth", and it makes dealing with them quite perplexing for those of us who are incapable of unabashed dishonesty.

The sociopath (pathological liar) has an advantage. He has no conscience to make him feel guilty. He will, with great delight, play on your conscience. He will:

  • Remind you of your moral responsibility

  • Repeat back to you your morals

  • Accuse you of what he is guilty himself of doing

  • Talk at a million miles an hour - usually on a different topic - so you can't focus on the issue at hand

  • Present a fake sense of morality, as if he is morally superior to you

  • Act as if things that were said, were never said, or things that happened never happened

To the sociopath, nothing is ever their fault. There is always a reason, and that reason is often YOU.

  • If he is cheating with prostitutes, it's because you drove him to it.

  • If he loses his job, it's because of you, not because of his addiction.

The sociopath will use FLATTERY to get what he wants.

He will make promises, but he will not keep them.

He wants you and everyone else to PITY HIM.

He will use his position of authority (real or imagined) to get people to believe his false version of events.

This book is worth reading to gain better insight into dealing with the sociopath next door - or right inside your house.

Amazon.com review:

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.