Review of "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout, PhD

It is hard to do a review for a non fiction book. I can say I am interested in the subject, between being in Psychiatric Nursing, and having a husband in Law Enforcement I am more than used to sociopaths and their behaviors. This book is geared for a regular person who does not have any knowledge of sociopaths and their behavior and is very well done.

It was broken up very well. Between different theories on why 1 in 25 Americans have no conscience, to stories of her own patients that she took apart and explained and discussed, to how this crosses lines from psychology into religion and culture.

I think the best part is the complete knowledge it gave. The way it was presented was excellent. It was an easy read. My favorite part was the description of how much damage sociopaths do to our culture, and theirselves, and all those in their path. Whether it is a man running a company and doing things that are bad, or someone stealing something just of the heck of it. These people do not grapple with what most of would if we behaved that way because we have a conscience and the people described have no conscience. We also expect someone important and who is somewhat of an authority figure to have a conscience. It is surprising to find out, if we ever do, that they do not. Then there are those who just like to annoy everyone in anyway they can because they do not have any feelings or connections to other humans. The book also gets into some of our more famous sociopaths like Hitler and Ghengis Khan.

The best thing that Dr. Stout did, was give us "Thirteen Rules For Dealing With Sociopaths In Everyday Life" which was worth the price of the book at all costs. Everyone should have this information. As a matter of fact, I found out a friend of mine, who is no longer a friend, was a sociopath. To a "T". I had a feeling at the time, but, because I have a conscience, I found it so hard to believe that anyone could act that way. I kept saying she way under undue stress and had very bad luck. But she had no conscience.

And then the last chapter brings in all of the religions and cultures that may not say that there are sociopaths as we would recognize them, but they all have their own word for that type of person. And the religions all have the biggest rule of conscience, no matter how you say it, "Do unto others as you would have done unto you". The last chapter was my favorite.

I highly recommend this book for the simple fact of the knowledge it contains and how useful it can be.