Dispelling Dark Forces
The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Usby Martha Stout, ph.d. (Broadway Books $24.95)
This enlightening and disturbing book examines the unsettling statistic that four percent of Americans are sociopaths. If that doesn't sound like much, consider this: "There are more sociopaths among us than people who suffer from the much-publicized disorder of anorexia, four times as many sociopaths as schizophrenics, and one hundred times as many sociopaths as people diagnosed with a known scourge such as colon cancer," writes Stout. more
For most of us, the word sociopath conjurs up images of serial killers like Ted Bundy or Hannibal Lecter, but this is not always accurate. Sociopaths are not always murderers, explains Stout, but they always wreak emotional havoc in the lives of others because they feel no guilt, shame or remorse or empathy. Sociopaths have no conscience.
As a psychologist at Harvard Medical School who specializes in treating victims of emotional trauma, Stout says that many of her patients are victims of sociopaths in their families, whose emotional lives are shattered. "In helping my patients and their families cope with the harm done to their lives, and in studying their case histories, I have learned that the damage caused by the sociopaths among us is deep and lasting, often tragically lethal, and startlingly common," she writes. Helping people identify and avoid sociopaths and their destructive behavior is her motivation for writing this book.
After explaining just how a lack of conscience works, Stout offers checklist on how to recognize sociopaths (which you'll be applying to all the difficult people in your life, just to see) and offers case histories of sociopaths and their victims she has treated. From the destructive and self-involved CEO to the fake psychologist to the mean old lady to the killer whose daughter is Stout's patient, the case histories are the most compelling part of a truly compelling narrative. While the exposition at the end is a bit redundant, this is a riveting and necessary book.
Buy this book!
The new book by psychologist, Martha Stout, Ph.D., "The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us," reminded me of other articles and books about people without a conscience or compassion.
ReplyDeleteIn an article in "In These Times" January 27, 2003, Kurt Vonnegut talks about "psychopathic personalities" described in "The Mask of Sanity" by Dr. Hervey Cleckley. His descriptions sound very similiar to Dr. Stout's sociopaths. What Mr. Vonnegut makes abundantly clear is that many of our leaders seem to fit that diagnosis, especially George W. Bush with his inability to feel anyone's pain and his lifelong history of ridiculing others. In a Rolling Stone article in August 2004, Garry Trudeau remembers Bush “He could also make you feel extremely uncomfortable ... He was extremely skilled at controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed humiliation.” And let's not forget the oft repeated tales of GWB blowing up frogs. Cruelty to animals as a child is a strong indicator that the child will grow up to be a sociopath, without any compassion for others. We should also remember how Bush mocked Karla Faye Tucker, one of the many people executed in Texas (more than any other governor) during Bush's regime, by sarcastically saying "Please don't kill me."
I think Dr. Stout's new book has more to offer the nation than she may realize.
Kathleen Cunningham