What readers think of The Sociopath Next Door, plus links to write your own review.

Really interesting to read! Enjoyed it and the mini scenarios were helpful :)

Actually Keith, one person in every 25 does equal 4. If you add up 25 four times, that makes 100; and there will be 4 persons out of 100 that fit the bill as full-blown sociopaths (one person for each group of 25.) That makes 4. However, these are just the clear and unambivalent cases. The rest of the population has tendencies either toward neurosis, or toward character disorders such as sociopathology or narcisism. It would be interesting to get a graph, scatter plot, or some type of visual depiction of the dispersal of psychological problems across the population, but it might be too scarey to look at.

What an eyeopener. This book has identified people in my past and present who have such traits and have made my life and, through that extension, my family's and friends - miserable. They are even easier to understand if you take a look at the New World Translation of the Bible and read the first letter to the Corinthians chapter 13 verse 4 - 6. When you know what love is and the incapacity of a sociopath not to show it - these scriptures spell it out loudly. They read - "Love is long suffering, and KIND. Love is NOT JEALOUS, it DOES NOT BRAG, does not get PUFFED UP, does NOT BEHAVE INDECENTLY, does NOT LOOK FOR ITS OWN INTERESTS, does NOT BECOME PROVOKED. It does NOT KEEP ACCOUNT OF THE INJURY. It does NOT REJOICE OVER UNRIGHTEOUSNESS but REJOICES with the TRUTH". In the same book of Corinthians chapter 10 v 24 it says "Let each one keep seeking NOT HIS OWN ADVANTAGE but that of the other person". This ties in with the thought "love does not look for its own interests". The sociopath is incapable of doing this.

The advice to quit all contact is hard but honest and is the correct action to take.
1 Corinthians 15 v 33 says "Bad association spoils useful habits" - in other words "don't associate with them".

Matthew ch7 v 6 goes on to speak to me as a victim "Do not give what is holy to dogs, neither throw your pearls before swine, that they may NEVER TRAMPLE them under their feet and turn around and RIP YOU OPEN".

For those who are ignorant and who have a biblically trained conscience, the clinical advice to have nothing to do with the sociopath (who could be in your own congregation) appears to run contrary to the admonition to "greet your brother" but recognising the "rocks below the waters" our creator has given us some wise insight into the need, at times, to safeguard ourselves.
Therefore, as a Christain who has had two sociopathic friends trample all over my life whilst throwing the letter of the Bible with its laws in my face - the truth is - the LAW of LOVE in the bible is what will distinguish them and their "rotten fruits" from the rest of us who genuinely can love. For the Bible says quite clearly in 1 John 4 v 8 "He that DOES NOT LOVE has not come to know GOD, because GOD IS LOVE". Yes there are all sorts of laws in the bible and the sociopath will throw them at you hard, twist them and then disrupt the peace whilst failing to show, as quoted, the greatest law of all - LOVE. The fact that a sociopath is full of lies and deceit also rings true with the name SATAN and DEVIL meaning deceiver and liar. It all adds up.

My stance on this is that I have taken my doctors advice and the professional advice of a psychologist and - broken all ties. My biblical standpoint is just as I have written - I will not be a doormat to a sociopath. I choose to "hate what they do and not who they are". If they exist in my congregation, then I will let God be the judge and continue to do what the book says: Have a happy life and not include the sociopath in it. After reading the book I could have written a few chapters myself on the people who have crossed my path and who exist in our community and who are messing up other people's lives as I write. I find it a kindness on behalf of the author to warn us and inform us and now I choose to do the same. Warn and help others to find the escape I found in this book.

There are certain parts in the book that I thought were more interesting than others. I still learned a lot and would recommend it to others.

For years I have been trying to get someone to help me understand what I was dealing with in my own daughter.

Her awards, in High School and College were truly spectacular. She held a wonderful position after college. She married a man who seemed to be a really quality guy.

They are now divorced (I can't imagine what life was like when they were together, because I think he may have been, in a different way, of the same type.) I only stay in contact with them because of the precious children who have no recourse or protection.

At last this book told me what no one else had been able to explain. I kept feeling guilty for the way she was. Stout helped me be free from that guilt and gave me some practical strategies for dealing with her.

Honestly, I got so much out of this book, but I found the application to political systems rather a stretch and pretty boring--a sidetrack in an otherwise excellent book. I would suggest that Stout make that another book. As much as I could, I skipped over those parts.

I am so thankful for this book! At last, all the puzzle pieces of years are fitting together. Stout is very wise to suggest that we not try to convince others of what we now know. They won't believe it.

The best thing you can do is stay as far away as you are able to and protect yourself!

I found the book very insightful. However, I disagree with Dr. Stout's "black and white" characterization of sociopathy. She implies that 4% have no conscience whatsoever, whereas 96% have a "normal" conscience. I don't believe that this reflects reality. I think to categorize someone as having absolutely no conscience is not only inaccurate, it suggests that they are hopeless and should be "written off". The fact is, we don't even know what a conscience is, and we certainly can't prove that a significant segment of the population has absolutely no conscience.
I'm not arguing with the basic concepts of the book... I just think that it's extremely inaccurate to paint a picture that these people are all equally ice cold and hopeless.

Dr. Martha Stout presents extensive amounts of information based on research. in essence, the 4 she refers to is not a part of the 1 in 25 but apart of the entire population that walks among us.
This book puts questions out on the table and the reader thinks about the various natures of sociopaths which leads them into thinking that people around them are all sociopaths. She is very unorganized in her writing but presents lots of interesting information about these ruthless creatures.

Martha Stout's book The Sociopath Next Door is a good book from a number of angles. The examples and stories she provides in the book are illuminating, and she understands well the characteristic features of the sociopathic personality. Unfortunately, she entertains questions that are specifically philosophical, i.e., the nature of conscience and the causes of sociopathy, and it is clear that she is not a trained philosopher. She seems to give evidence of a reductionist or determinist habitus, and the quality of the discussion in these areas drops considerably. She would be wise to consider the insights of forensic psychologist Dr. Stanton Samenow, in particular the primacy of thinking over feeling. In short, she confuses conscience with emotion--for as the word indicates, con 'science' is a kind of knowing, a judgment or act of the intellect. Human emotion is intimately tied up in thinking. Stout makes a mess of this and thus fails to fully appreciate self-determination, as is typical among psychologists today. Nonetheless, the book is worth reading, since most people are still woefully ignorant of the nature of evil.