The Sociopath Next Door Book Reviews

AUTHOR
Martha Stout, Ph.D.
SCORE
4
TOTAL RATINGS
503

The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, Ph.D. Book Summary

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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Book Name The Sociopath Next Door
Genre Psychology
Published
Language English
E-Book Size 6.4 MB

The Sociopath Next Door (Martha Stout, Ph.D.) Book Reviews 2024

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Thought provoking read. Really enjoyed the book, was a subject area I wasn’t well versed in. I especially enjoyed the last chapter.

Sociopathy and our conscience. Fine book that not only clearly defines the working mind of sociopathy, but as importantly explains the value that our conscience adds to living a full, fruitful, and happy life.

Very good book. Very good book that everybodu should read. If you want to be convinced: just read the 1* comment from the sociopath on this book. He is the perfect example of what is wrong with them. He is a sociopath but it’s OUR problem and WE should have to deal with it and fix him. At no point he even consider trying to work on himself to fix it even if he KNOWS he has a problem. He is alsway right and we are always wrong and should deal with it. Pretty eye opening, isn’t it? Do yourself a favor and read this book to save yourselve time and insanity by trying to make sense how understand why sociopath are behaving like that (you can’t).

Very insightful. I found this book extremely helpful and insightful. I only wish that I had found it years ago.

Pretty good.... If you want to know more about sociopathic people this book is informative enough. But If you want to know more about dealing with such people this doesn't say much. Maybe because the best way to deal with them is to simply banish them from your life as fast as possible? That is the professional advice I was given by my doctor. I followed it and am happier for it.

Spot On!. The author elegantly and succinctly describes the sociopath we all know...I look forward to a future, more expanded "handbook" for those of us coping and dealing with this type of person.

Eye open. This book is very enlightening. It answers the big question of why something's happen. A rallying call for the complacent!

Great Book. Very Helpful to those who are dealing with people such as these.

Very Much Appreciated. As a person who is being haunted on a daily basis by a sociopath, your brilliantly written book has given me profound insight on this perpetual bully's inner workings, as well as how to protect myself and enjoy all of the wonder and love in my life. Very much appreciated. Traci G

Really?..... This book (obviously) concerns me. Why is it that people assume that all sociopaths are these conniving evil creatures? Instead of thinking up ways to identify and avoid us, try treating us like any other human being. Just because we might not feel guilt doesn't mean we're going to do something we should feel guilty about. Maybe sociopaths should be treated like actual human beings instead of being singled out like monsters. Isn't that a little sociopaths itself?

Great for Domestic Violence Victims. I was married to a man like this. He verbally and mentally was and still is very abusive to me and our children. This book was referred to me to read and "BOY WERE MY EYES OPENED!" It helped me understand what he is doing see the effects it had on me. I will never understand the high they get because its sick! although, from years of reading, counseling, and living as a DV victim this book enabled me to work through this behavior and be functional. this is a heavy read but Strongly recommend. Would like to read more from this author on support and more solution solving through the cases.

Eye Opening. This book was incredibly enlightening as I had a skewed version of what a sociopath was. My eyes are wide open!

The Sociopath Next Door. Excellent academic work, but I would have found it more helpful if the author could have spent more time on practical solutions on how to deal with a sociopath. Say after you marry one and unfortunately have kids with the sociopath. Your not always able to distance yourself from the sociopath as the author recommends, and ideally would be optimal.

Excellent To Be Sure - But Take With A Grain Of Salt. "Forewarned is forearmed," is the great benefit to the reader of this book. It's so important in this world to know just exactly what you might be dealing with when you are investing time, making commitments, and even giving trust to people. You need to have awareness so you are not 'played the fool' by people who have personality disorders. The Author, Martha Stout, has given her well-researched book to us with qualified insight. My one reservation, be it on my own to decipher, is that I, being a Bible-believing Christian, was slightly grimacing over a few tie-in's intermingling Faith and conscience. I simply have a different viewpoint from the author's and in no way takes away from the overall value of this book.

The Sociopath Next Door. I've worked professionally with addicts & also have a post-doctoral degree in psychiatric epidemiology. So my interest and knowledge of the topic is fairly comprehensive. Still in all, I found the author's presentation of this complex disorder to be very enlightening. I've already suggested the book to a friend who is going thru a very excruciating experience with her boss. And now that I think back my painful experience with a peer is most likely the result of sociopathy. I can't say enough about the richness and depth of information Dr. Stout brings to this topic. It should provide tremendous insight to victims & others.

Offensive. This book makes people who revert to being a sociopath as coping mechanism as a result of childhood trauma seems to not even be considered. Maybe some of these people understand the way they are, but do not like the way they are, but their brain just works that way. I just find this book to be slanderous to anyone suffering from such personality disorders. It's insensitive.

Agree with "Really". I agree with "Really", down below with What he/she said. Not every sociopath Is bad and I've noticed a lot Of people i know only are read it So they can avoid people like That. For someone to focus On really wanting to avoid Someone like this is only Making themselves more paranoid. Its just easier to go online to Look for red flags of an abusive man Or red flags of a con artist. And also agree with someone else's comment Above that most sociopaths are in the Helping and caring field such as nurses, Dentists, police, lawyers and politicians Thats just a few to name..

A Must Read for Those in a People Profession!. There are more sociopaths in the helping profession than people realize and they frequently end up being supervisors and administrators of "clinical" mental health programs. Mental Health Professionals, If you have ever wondered why a boss, supervisor and/or administrator is so inconsiderate, unsupportive and just downright sneaky mean, read this book! Very insightful. And the solution to the problem: Quit promoting these people into positions of power over more and more people. Be proactive. Stop laughing at their inane, insulting jokes in staff meetings, stop sucking up, grow a pair and stand up for your clients and fellow coworkers! (This book could also easily be titled, "The Bully Next Door".) -LCSW, BCD

Understanding sociopathic interactions. Every so often I came across people whose capacity to manipulate and exploit others shamelessly left me at best hurt or puzzled, and at worst feeling confused, powerless, and questioning my own sanity. This book presents a possible explanation, and while I am not yet completely convinced, some early experimentation with predicting behavior and preparing a response based on the theories and explanations written here have met with surprising success. Though the book waxes a bit poetic and preaches to the choir in the last chapter, the rest is well worth reading and thinking about carefully.

Disturbing. In that this author capitalizes from scapegoating much of our societal problems on this Ill defined group of moral imbeciles. More disturbing is its popularity. Replace sociopath with Jews and publish this during Weimar republic and it would easily be championed by you know who.

Boring for 90% of the time. Constant rambling on and on and on. Almost like a word quota needed to be hit and she only had half the words she needed. Incredibly tedious way of explaining elementary concepts.

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Summary of The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, Ph.D.

The The Sociopath Next Door book written by Martha Stout, Ph.D. was published on 08 February 2005, Tuesday in the Psychology category. A total of 503 readers of the book gave the book 4 points out of 5.

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