Book Description
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.
Customer Reviews:
When running next door for Sugar means packing a Gat!.......2007-09-28
Welcome to my World!
Yep, many have called me a sociopath in my day. Only one of them, however, got to say something after that, and that was only because the gun jammed.
Ha! Ha! Kidding. Martha Stout has put together this slender little tome, packed with pop science and plenty of white desert-like margins, that sets out to let you know that:
1)Four percent of the population exhibits sociopathic qualities. For the mathematically challenged---that is, pretty much 96% of the population---that means 1 out of 25.
Think about that statistic for a minute.Take an office with 25 people, and chances are Herbie the Courier Guy or Roald (you know, Roald, the guy with glasses and the shaky sweaty hands, the Quiet One. Roald. Sheesh) has invested in some XP-142 Night Vision goggles and a serrated knife, and, um, a GPS device that might lead him to your front door.
At 2 in the morning. Just so we're clear.
2) These sociopath guys, like the Wu-Tang Clan, ain't nothing to mess with. No sir. They can't love. They don't feel emotion. They're Republican. They're corporate chieftains. They ride in the Lear, the Limo, the Maybach. They invented War. They smear cats with napalm, then duct tape them to the underside of your car, right by the rear exhaust, with a tricked-out bic lighter just waiting for ignition.
Sorry, I made that last one up. But you get the general gist of the book.
"Sociopath Next Door" is simply not scholarly, and verges on dangerous. Sociopath is a pop-term, like psycho, like axe-murderer, like boogeyman, El Diablo, or Janet Reno, with about the same level of erudition & exactness. It's jarring to see the term used so callously. Isn't it dangerous to fling terms and profiles, particularly ones as crudely formed and ill-defined as this, in what is essentially piece of pulp pop-science?
"Sociopath" even tries to put together a home-made psycho alarm for the Gentle Reader, the better to ferret out whether weird Mr. Fishbein, the crazy coot who lies next door, lies awake on his bed at nights dressed only in a giant plastic baggy whispering to his AK-47 and plotting your demise. Guess what should set off alarm bells & unleash the hounds?
That's right: someone who asks for pity. For mercy. For clemency. A pity-junky, according to this book, is a ravening sociopath probably plotting to get you fired, pour acid on your car, and eat your firstborn child with some fava beans and a fine chianti.
"Sociopath" also spends some time talking about the supposed human superstition against killing: according to her, people really kill only when supervised by (you guessed it!) a drooling sociopath. The irony here: the author indicates one means by which men make their subjects kill is by de-humanizing the Other: using language to demonize, to turn the Outsider, the Pariah, the Unclean (usually some target ethnic or religious group), into an "It".
It's a fair point. But skim her book, and simply replace sociopath with any ethnic epithet and take a look at how it reads. Avoid the devilish sociopaths. They don't feel. They're not human. They have cold blood. They're killers. Four percent of the planet is responsible for all the rape, the killing, the torture, and the endless popularity of David Hasselhoff.
Hasn't this book demonized sociopaths as brutally, as unfairly, as unjustly, as anything any Monster of History did with their fave victim class? Where's the Love for the American Psycho? Are we not also Human? Cut* us, do we not bleed? Cut us twice, do we not make you bleed more?
But what "Sociopath" edges away from is the really interesting question here: what if sociopathy is not a malady? What if it's evolution? What if the guy who doesn't get all weepy over "Beaches" is really Humanity New New Thing, the silver-suited astropath who will transcend this miserable mortal coil and help us defeat the Ichthyoid Nasties from Betelgeuse 14?
In the meantime, using the book's 'method' for spotting psychos is about as useful as playing spin the bottle. Intuition, instinct, and your own experience probably cuts the mustard, and you don't have to waste your money on this one-way ticket to Paranoia. Granted, instinct isn't perfect.
But it sure beats fretting over whether your trip next door to borrow the lawnmower should include a can of mace, a sawed-off 12 gauge, and kevlar body armor.
JSG
Very Informative and Balanced.......2007-09-22
I would recommend this book to anyone who is struggling to find the answers for that mentally challenged family member who does not assimilate into society well. This book answered so many questions for our family. I found it to be very balanced and not "opinionated". The author did an excellent job of presenting the characters personalities,or lack therof, in a way that all readers could understand. The medical community seems somewhat hesitant to place labels on certain individuals and it was refreshing to see that there is some explanation and definition for what our family has been enduring for years. A great read!
Amazing information.......2007-08-27
Pretty scarey to know there are so many among us! Very easy read book and very informative.
Curses! That meddling Stout has revealed my devious plot!.......2007-08-23
I am one those people next door who can literally do ANYTHING.... and feel no guilt. I am unable to love. I am magnetic, sexy, and the word "charisma" does not begin to explain the animal magnetism I exude. I live to dominate and win. I eat my steaks rare--singed a bit on the outside and bloody inside. Very bloody. And I'll tell you what. Until Martha Stout wrote this book that gives all the ordinary sad-sack suckers out there the tools to identify my deep EEEEEEEEEE-vil, I was on track to dominate the world! BWA-HA-HA!!! But now that even an average schlump can look at me and think "psycho" without straining his limited mental faculties, the world shall never be my own personal oyster--with a fully stocked harem of beautiful captives, and my legions of enemies working themselves to death in salt mines. Thanks for nothing, Martha Stout!
Very Interesting!.......2007-08-23
This is a great book for anyone interested in Sociology. This book provides not only a glimpse into the lives of sociopaths, but is truly a first line of defense for everyone. It personally gave me a lot of insight into how these mentally ill people operate. I have a great understanding and unbelievably, empathy for sociopaths.
Book Description
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.
Customer Reviews:
the sociopath next door.......2007-09-26
a must read for anyone who lives with or thinks they know someone who is a sociopath.
Why slip politics into this book?.......2007-09-11
Simply as an introduction to the concept of Sociopathy, this is an interesting book, although the use of composites rather than actual individuals in her case studies certainly weakens much of the work.
But like some other readers, I can't fathom why the author felt it necessary to keep making veiled political commentary in nearly every chapter of this book. From invoking SLA Marshall's widely questioned statistics around the propensity of soldiers in combat to fire their weapons, to referring, not so obliquely, to America's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan to sociopathic behavior on the part of the nation's leaders, this book just keep leaning leftward.
I'm sure this is going to thrill some readers, go undetected by others and be noted by ignored by others. But for some, me included, its about as tiresome as it gets, and furthermore, will reduce the relevance of the book as the years pass.
Do I recommmend you read it? Sure. Do I wish that the author would edit out the political claptrap? Yes, that would make it a better book. When I'm reading a book on Psychology, I don't care what one's politics are - liberal, moderate or conservative - and I don't want to hear about them.
Interesting, but a little bland.......2007-08-24
The book is at its best when the author is giving her descriptions of actual sociopaths. It tends to falter in the more technical part, describing the science of psychology. I found it interesting and of course disturbing at the same time. I agree that there are at least 4% of the population out there who are sociopathic. I have known at least two of them myself and recognized the traits so well it was like I already knew it.
The author's liberal politics could not be hidden in some of her asides and comments here and there. Perhaps that is why she avoided discussing what we as a society should do with these people. Well, she was plenty willing to diss on sociopaths as corporate boardroom hooligans, but the much more common run of the mill criminals, not so much.
Her best advice was to recognize these people and stay away from them. A common mistake is to get drawn into a sort of courtroom argument where they make you have to prove they are what you recognize them to be. You don't have to. Just ditch them. They will never change.
Too fluffy.......2007-07-05
A fuzzy, broad and indistinct treatment of the subject. Felt more "pop-psyche" than solid and factual. A "girls" book of psychopathy. I liked "Without Conscience" much better.
excelent starter book on psychopathy.......2007-06-19
Every "normal" human should read this book. Martha Stout writes an easy to read book on a very important subject sociopathy/psycopathy people without a conscience, it's shocking to realize that at least 4% of the population walking amongst us in our every day lives are born without a conscience no wonder our world is in a mess! I also recommend Martha Stout's Myth of Sanity.
Book Description
The former occupant of cubicle 4S700R at Pacific Bell seems to have made a go of this cartoon strip thing. What began as a doodling diversion that Scott Adams shared with his officemates has exploded into one of the most read cartoon strips worldwide. Dilbert and his cube crew now appear in 2,000 daily newspapers and are seen by 150 million people in 65 countries. Adams' Dilbert comic strip collections, treasuries, and calendars have combined to sell almost 20 million copies.The sixth Dilbert treasury, What Do You Call a Sociopath in a Cubicle? Answer: A Coworker, brings together all of the office psychos who have annoyed Dilbert and entertained millions over the past 13 years. This compilation pays homage to some of the most annoying and outrageous characters Adams' has ever drawn-characters he likes to call office "sociopaths."o Edfred the two-faced mano Anne L. Retentiveo Nervous Tedo Loud Howardo Alice and her fist of deathThis full-color treasury reinforces everything that makes the strip great by lampooning the people and processes of business. Adams homes in on all the quirky coworkers that drive us crazy in the corporate world. He has fun at the expense of office oafs found in workplaces everywhere-creatures like the Office Sociopath, who listens to voice mail on his speaker phone, and the Exactly Man, who punctuates everything with a finger point, exclaiming "Exactly!" The result is a book that leaves readers knowingly rolling their eyes and, of course, laughing uproariously.
Customer Reviews:
What Do You Call A Sociopath In A Cubicle? - A Coworker.......2005-09-14
Highly entertaining. Everyday frustrating events reduced to their truly accurate, but sad, essence. Drives home that everyone in the corporate world are in the same boat being guided by the unchallenging and inept.
Don't waste your money.......2005-08-02
Let me start off by saying that I love Dilbert and Scott Adams' work has made me laugh so hard that I have been reduced me to tears on occasion. That said, the only tears Dilbert fans will shed with this collection are tears of frustration. This book is an insult to Dilbert fans. All of this material has been published before. What's more it seems like they couldn't even bother to get an editor to look over this collection before sending it to the printer: some strips get printed twice in this volume. Scott Adams needs to apologize for foisting this collection on his fans.
This recycling is getting tiresome.......2004-01-21
Let's start this off by saying that I have always been a fan of Dilbert and it is one of the few comic strips I'll buy in collected form. That being said, the constant recycling of of material has hit a new low with this collection. Once again using previously collected material from 1989-2001, this collection does not even give the reader accompanying text from Adams, just a short intro that adds nothing to the reader's enjoyment. Are the "cubical sociopaths" separated from one another by anything other than chronological order? No! If you are a Dilbert fan and own the other collections, save your money. It's almost like this one was designed by the marketing department and put together at the last minute by Wally.
Dilbert deja vu encore again part III.......2004-01-19
Scott Adams has been producing his hilarious Dilbert cartoons for 15 years now, long enough for many of us to go from cubicle dweller to VP. This is very funny stuff, centered around the themes of co-workers from hell, such as the Office Sociopath and Mr. Goodenrich, the company president, and dysfunctional departments such as Sales. Unfortunately, there is nothing new here, it is all recycled from previously books. For the most part it is also a random collection of strips, with story lines from the go-go days of the 90's now seeming hopelessly out of date.
Let me summarize here. Like all Dilbert cartoons, this is funny stuff. Adams was a phone company engineer and knows better than anyone the lunacy of the workplace and he very competently translates it onto the strips. If you have never read Dilbert, do not start here. Go for the earlier books like Willy the Mailboy or Clues for the Clueless.
My first Dilbert Book. I liked it........2003-09-11
I have to say I enjoyed this book. I have always had a small fascination for the corporate satyre world of the 90s Adams introduced us to. I looked it up on the website and started reading the strips every day. With that, I went to the local Barnes and Noble and bought it. I liked it. I later read these reviews and they seem to be written by people with lots of experiance with Adams other books. This book was my first and it spans from 1989 to 2002, and I like it A LOT!! Its a recaap of all the characters. Through reading it you see the todays dilbert characters and adams drawing style evolve over time. Instead of a rip-off comp from all the other Dilbert books, consider it an introduction to the many faces of Dilbert and his coworkers.
Product Description
Martha Stout, Ph.D., advises that sociopaths are more common than most people realize. In fact, Stout says that sociopaths comprise four percent of the population, which essentially is one out of every twenty-five people. "The Sociopath Next Door" serves as a guide to understand how sociopaths work, how to identify them, and how to avoid them and not be affected by their ruthless behavior.
Customer Reviews:
Look into the mind of the guilt-free predator..........2007-10-05
These days, with the abundance of books, movies, and television programs available on demand for instant entertainment, our knowledge tends to be informed by popular culture rather. Because of this,our intake of the dramatic simplification of most topics is outweighed drastically by factual representation.
With this in mind, it is no wonder that most of us envision dangerous people as wild-eyed lunatics noticeable a mile way, disheveled madmen that are encountered far and few between.
As Martha Stout demonstrates in The Sociopath Next Door, there are people capable of unimaginable atrocities all around us, and not only do they appear like everyone else, but they might even be less conspicuous than one would hope.
If Good and Evil are opposites of the same coin, and Good people are those who care and feel for others, then it stands to reason that evil exists as people lacking the ability to care or love. These people exist, cold and calculating sociopaths unfettered by the restrictions of guilt or conscious, and they do so in alarming numbers reaching epidemic proportions. 4% of the US population are afflicted with Sociopathic Personalities, far greater than those afflicted with cancer. Meaning one out of every twenty-five people you meet feel no remorse or regret, and are capable of anything.
Martha Stout's book strikes an elegant balance between clinical facts and anecdotal examples, making this book an easy read that manages not to come off as either a fluffy fear-mongering diatribe or a stuffy jargon-laden medical tome. The examples created from personal case studies perfectly illustrate the points of each chapter, but don't detract from the factual or philosophical topics discussed.
Despite chapters warning of the realities of the sociopaths among us, such as their alarming ability to blend in and even charm us into their confidence, her tone never reaches an alarmist level. This is a book that informs and prepares, with instilling false hope or blind panic in its audience. Also, while this topic is heavy with emotion, Stout never descends into supermarket tabloid prose. Apart from a slight detour into 9/11, which almost has no bearing on the topic at hand, the examination of the origins and ramifications of the human conscious remain informative and exploratory without becoming preachy. Especially interesting is the chapter that delves into the nature vs. nurture debate, in which she examines the genetic, environmental, and cultural influences that can help create or subdue a growing child's sociopathic tendencies.
If you have ever witnessed someone behaving extraordinarily ruthlessly or cruelly, and have wondered how someone could even bring themselves to act in such a manner, this book will go a long way towards satisfying your curiosity.
No book will stay longer in the mind. Compelling, useful, elegant........2006-03-16
Stout's sensitive, haunting ability to interweave clinical observation, research, and moral philosophy together has resulted in a wildly popular book. Both her observations and admonitions all but sing with startling clarity and truth.
For many, Dr. Stout's advice may seem to come too late. But even an explanation is better than the confusion that evil leaves in its wake. No sophisticated book on psychology-or "self help book"-- could be more helpful to explain those without conscience: from the spouse, child, or lover we didn't have words to explain; or the politicians who do what appears otherwise inexplicable; or even the people of Ted Bundy's ilk.
The Sociopath Next Door does not appear as book designed to frighten; rather, it carefully crafted to help us meet the inevitable evil in life.
Stout's book is a greatly deserved winner of this year's "Books for a Better Life" competition. The hard back became an instant classic.
This book will be with us and necessary as long as there is inexplicable evil. No book will stay longer in the mind or could prove more timeless. The Sociopath Next Door is as wise book: compelling, useful, and as lyrical as it is elegant.
Book Description
Personality tests have long fascinated the public, and are currently experiencing a renaissance, particularly among the young and hip. From Marie Claire magazine to Emode, popular self tests are engaging and enlightening readers of all ages. Readers will find entertaining and serious test alike. Examples include: What type of car are you? Do you fall for the Professor of the Hunk? Are you without a conscience? And is your reality really “reality?” Written with humor and an easy-to-read layout, these 50 tests will help readers explore and learn more about themselves and those whom they care about.
Customer Reviews:
Great book.......2005-12-30
I really enjoy personality tests...both giving and taking them. I had so much fun taking the 51 tests in this book and evaluating my friends. If you are interested in learning more about yourself or you just want a few evenings of fun...this is the book for you. I think I am going to print some of the tests and use them at my next party.
Pleasant Surprise.......2005-12-29
This book was recommended by a friend and I not only found it to be personally helpful, but have incorporated it into our organizational Supervisory Management Program. It is entertaining, but very conducive to learning which is a difficut task with most seasoned managers. This book is well written, has many useful self analysis evaluations that are fun, but will make you stop and think. It is usefull and a very pleasant surprise.
Great Reading and a Fun time.......2005-12-24
I found this book by accident and started reading parts of it, and then could not put it down. There are just so many things that make you think the Author followed you around, and knows the story of your life. I would recommend this anyone to discover more about themselves. Whoever Doroty Mc Coy is, I hope she keeps writing.
Book Description
On September 11, 2001, the "Fear Switch" in our brains got flicked. How do we turn it off and reclaim our lives?
Five years after September 11, we’re still scared. And why not? Terrorists could strike at any moment. Our country is at war. The polar caps are melting. Hurricanes loom. We struggle to control our fear so that we can go about our daily lives. Our national consciousness has been torqued by trauma, in the process transforming our behavior, our expectations, our legal system.
In The Myth of Sanity, Martha Stout, who until recently taught at the Harvard Medical School, analyzed how we cope with personal trauma. In her national bestseller The Sociopath Next Door, she showed how to avoid suffering psychological damage at the hands of others. Now, in The Paranoia Switch, she offers a groundbreaking clinical, neuropsychological, and practical examination of what terror and fear politics have done to our minds, and to the very biology of our brains.
In this timely and essential book, Stout assures us that we can interrupt the cycle of trauma and look forward to a future free of fear only by understanding our own paranoia—and what flips the paranoia switch.
Customer Reviews:
Free your mind, and the rest will follow..........2007-10-08
Building on two critically acclaimed books--The Sociopath Next Door, and The Myth of Sanity--THE PARANOIA SWITCH is Dr. Stout's latest groundbreaking look at the mental and emotional factors that drive people to do and feel the things they do.
Through her books, Dr. Stout provides fascinating insight into popular psychology, but it is important to remember that her theories are based on a stellar professional resume including over twenty-five years of teaching at Harvard Medical School and practicing clinical psychology.
The sixth anniversary of 9/11 has come and gone, but the memory of that horrible day lingers on in our brains. But does the memory linger on simply because of the severity of the mental trauma or because our leaders want us to remember it so they can more easily manipulate us?
According to THE PARANOIA SWITCH, the answer is a little of both.
The after effects of 9/11 are ingrained into our brains, and in fact, that trauma has changed our brains and semipermanently flipped on our own personal paranoia switches. But perhaps worst of all, the horror of that tragic day has been and will continue to be used by political fear brokers to control us and to bend us to their will.
Fight back! Free yourself!! Read THE PARANOIA SWITCH!!!
Another Wonderful Gift from the Author of THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR.......2007-10-06
Every American should read THE PARANOIA SWITCH as soon as possible. It will change the way you think about yourself and the country you live in. The writing is extremely beautiful, as you would expect from a book by Martha Stout, and the pages fly by because they're fascinating and because of the stories, but that's not really why everyone should read it. You should read it because if we all did, we might really be able to get our country back. And also our "selves."
The book begins with descriptions of just how terrified and full of grief everyone was right after September 11, 2001. You think you know this already, but when you see the actual descriptions and numbers, it's mind-blowing. After this, there's a test you can give yourself in the privacy of your own home to see how anxious you yourself are right now.
Then there's a chapter on how terrorism really works, told from a psychologist's point of view. This is a brand new way for most of us to think about terrorism.
Most of the rest of the book is about the unethical "fear politics" that have gone on in the United States since the terrorist attack in 2001. Dr. Stout describes in layman's language how terror affects the brain itself, how psychological trauma places a "paranoia switch" in our brains which sits there invisibly until something or SOMEONE pushes it. Then she discusses the sort of politician (the "fear broker") who would stoop low enough to use our fears to increase his own power. She discusses several situations from American history where this has happened, the KKK for example, and Joseph McCarthy and the U.S. Senate hearings. It's eye opening to see all the similarities between those chapters in our history and what's happening right now and to relate all that to the study of the brain.
Then most important of all, the book gives a list of ten characteristics of politicians and leaders who are "fear brokers" so that we can learn to recognize them when we see them on our televisions or elsewhere. Did you know for example that fear politicians have a different way of using pronouns from the way "moral leaders" use pronouns? There are many, many other danger signs discussed in the book that you can actually learn to recognize.
I can imagine the difficult corner the author was in when she wrote THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR, which is also a wonderful book. In that book she talks about how sociopaths (people who have no conscience) can reach very high levels in the society and in government, but I'm sure it wasn't possible for her to name names. Now in THE PARANOIA SWITCH, it's a lot clearer what she meant even though she doesn't use the same word (sociopath).
If all you're interested in is a book that talks about your personal life, your circle of friends, or help deciding if your boyfriend/girlfriend is nuts, then you're not someone who can fully appreciate THE PARANOIA SWITCH. If you want to read something new age about sending positive energy to the White House, then maybe get a different book. But if you want to read about bigger issues and REAL issues such as the real brain and the real condition of our government, please read THE PARANOIA SWITCH. To go along with the five stars, I'd like to give it a large banner that says IMPORTANT. MUST READ.
The author talks about courage in this book and tells good people how they can get their courage back. In my opinion, it took a lot of courage to write this book in the first place about the so-called leaders who are using our fear after 9/11 to try to control us. She takes the masks off some powerful people who definitely don't like to have their masks taken off. But it's only when we can see something clearly that we stand a chance of dealing with it. Many thanks to Dr. Stout.
Not up to her first 2 books..........2007-10-05
Compared to her 1st 2 books, which were fascinating, useful and encouraging, I found this one boring, of little practical use, and discouraging. Her first 2 were mostly her own thoughts and the words of her clients directly, this is more a collection of references to the statistics, surveys & papers of others.
The message I received from her first 2 books were of the power of a person's spirit to as she says "chose to live - not just to not die, not just to survive, but to live." This volume seems to focus more on bare survival. The metaphor of a mechanical switch, seemed impersonal, cold & passive, especially if someone else can throw it! Her words rather than going from abstract to concrete went the other way. She mentions empathy many times but always calls it 'limbic resonance'. Spirit seems overwhelmed by physical brain structures.
Check it out yourself, read through the Index to see what topics she covers, how much, and using what words.
Finally, her list of clues in "The Sociopath Next Door" has enabled me to spot these secretive people in my daily life. It reminds me strongly of the clues in Marie-France Hirigoyen's book 'Stalking the Soul', useful on a daily basis. Here, her "10 Behavioral Characteristics of Fear Brokers" I found more vague, and the 'Fear Brokers' seemed not to be the people behind the 9/11 attacks, but people in our own government, a political rather than a psychological agenda.
While I have recommended her 1st 2 books to many friends and colleagues, I cannot recommend this one.
Bob
Average customer rating:
- NAADAC/Medicum
- Don't buy this book
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Sociotherapy for Sociopaths: Resocial Group
Rand Kannenberg
Manufacturer: PESI HealthCare
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Personality | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
General | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0972214712 |
Book Description
Designed by the author to help prevent relapse and rearrest of parolees and probationers at a community mental health center in 1986, this text outlines an evidence-based, twenty-four session group program created for adult clients with coexisting Substance Use Disorders and the persistent problems of aggressiveness, breaking rules and laws, carelessness, dishonesty, impulsivity, indifference, irresponsibility and irritability. The book examines the importance of sociotherapy or sociological counseling in the corrections and substance abuse fields.
Customer Reviews:
NAADAC/Medicum.......2006-08-13
"Kannenberg's fresh approach to treating psychoactive chemical abusing sociopaths should be in every counselor's arsenal when treating a client of this nature." Misti Storie, Education and Training Coordinator, Counselor Resources, "Reader's Corner," (NAADAC News, August 2005). Top 10 Bestselling Book List of search by subject on Medicum.net 2005.
Don't buy this book.......2006-05-31
This book is not a manual for sociotherapy with sociopaths. It is a collection of poorly written articles and lists, and to call it a book and charge $40 for it is ridiculous.
Book Description
Rapists Beware!
There's a hate-filled, smart, tough and determined victim of yours out there who specializes in 'low-tech' surgery performed with an X-acto knife.
She stalks, entraps, and punishes.
Customer Reviews:
Absolute rubbish!.......2007-01-10
This book is poorly written on all levels. I wouldn't recommend it unless your expectations are extremely low. Mills & Boon level fiction
The Sociopath.......2006-07-18
That fact that this is a NOVEL & not non-fiction should have been included on the cover of this book. I AM NOT interested in fiction regarding this subject. For future reference. I am interested in non-fiction ONLY.
Primitive, but interesting.......2004-06-22
In some ways this novel is a throwback to the glory days of pulp fiction, say the 1930s when paperback novels were a dime apiece. They were typically written in a couple of months in a hard-boiled ersatz James M. Cain style with an ordinary joe as the protagonist. They served well as escapist fare for flophouse waitresses and guys selling apples on street corners. Even the slightly smudgy-looking typeset in this book--as though the characters had been Xeroxed from Xeroxed copies--suggests an earlier time.
In other ways this is like something out of the late 1970s just before AIDS and the backlash against explicit sexuality in the mass culture. And in still another way this is like the violent movies that came from directors like Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone when Hollywood could no longer sell explicit sex and had to switch to violence.
The narrative is written in an unpretentious style full of simple, declarative sentences with flashes of oratory such as one might hear from jail house lawyers or barroom philosophers. Adams has a good ear for low- to middle-class dialogue of the kind that characterized not just the fiction of James M. Cain, but of the now forgotten James T. Farrell and a host of naturalistic imitators. In a way this work can be seen as a violent offshoot of the proletarian novel of the thirties that came out of the naturalistic tradition from the 19th century.
The story itself reads like it was pieced together in a hurry. Adams apparently wrote the book during the first five months of 1980. The title, along with a quote from "PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIOR Copyright 1963 by Jesse E. Gordon, PhD" which serves as a preface, seems tacked on, like an afterthought in an attempt to give the story an intellectual focus. More appropriate, to my mind, would have been choice words from a tome on nihilism, since that is the sort of cynical philosophy spouted by some of Adams's characters.
One of those characters, a black man named Roosevelt Holmes, is, however, not a nihilist, but is an attempt at fulfilling the promise of the book's title. He is a violent psychopathic rapist and murderer, but his personality is not really worked out. He has none of the disarming charm and duplicity attributed to sociopaths in the literature. He is rather a kind of animalistic sexual predator blind to anything other than is own bloody gratification.
There are other problems. Adams begins in the first person and then switches to the third, and alternates back and forth. While I am not a narrative purest, I think the entire novel could have been written in the third person without losing anything. Worse yet, because he apparently wanted to keep a silly and unnecessary plot twist hidden until the story is three-quarters over, his first person narrator suddenly becomes somebody else. I had the sense that this twist occurred to Adams at about the three-quarter mark. At any rate, after the twist is revealed, one sees a change in self-referentials from the first person narrator. I'm being vague because I don't want to give away anything important. I will say that it wasn't foreshadowed, and seems to come completely out of the blue, and again for no reason. The "love affair" is quickly disposed of, which is just as well since it had nothing to do with the plot anyway.
To illustrate, let's compare the "Chris" from page 12 with the suddenly different "Chris" of page 211.
Page 12: "From now on I could kill any man I wanted, I could overpower any woman I desired, and no one on this earth could do anything about it."
Page 211: "I tried to cry out but already I was suffused in a glow of sudden pleasure and without even being conscious of it my arms reached around him instinctively and hungrily and I gasped in the lovely gush of wetness and warmth."
Another problem is that the characters think an awful lot alike. The nihilistic speeches from narrator Chris could easily be exchanged with those of lung cancer victim Donald Eckman. The two women in the story are very similar in that they both take on masculine styles in speech and behavior, and are little concerned with the usual preoccupations of women. In a strange way, all of the characters seem like sociopaths. I'm not sure that is what Adams had in mind.
And then there are the loose ends. For example, never explained is how Chris got the government to release the men from prison. It's not even clear why. The idea that Vincent Savanna would have the ability to round up all the low-lifes in Minnesota and that there was any point to Chris's preaching to them, seems utterly silly. Also never explained is how and why a US Army soldier on patrol in Korea would be wearing a moneybelt with "one hundred and twenty-three thousand in Won, Yen, script, and American greenbacks" or what that has to do with anything. And resting on the shakiest of rationales is the trailer to be buried in Cohen's yard as some kind of fallout-shelter tomb (although I kind of like the zaniness of it).
There is indeed throughout the novel a kind of random association of people, ideas, and places as though quickly thrown together, perhaps because that is what the author wanted to write about that day. Yet there is a story and a plot--discovered, it would appear in medias res--that leads us from dissatisfaction to chaos.
In spite of the faults, there is one thing that Adams does well, and that is write the kind of prose that is easy to read while creating a kind of netherworld of unsavory characters that may fascinate some readers.
When the world just doesn't fit you any more..........2004-06-01
There doesn't seem to be much information available about this book, so I am actually quite glad that I picked it up on a recommendation from a friend.
The Sociopath is a work of fiction, most of it told in the first person by our protagonist. It does, however, cleverly skip around in both time-frame and point-of-view; but don't let that stop you from picking it up. What sounds like it could be annoying or hard to follow is in reality a very smooth, very fast read. I finished this book in one day (a beach-read) and I am definitely *not* a speed-reader.
The book did not contain enough gore for me, being a fan of such Gorror writers as Edward Lee and Jack Ketchum and Jeff Long; but it makes up for its lack of blood in the chillingly distracted narrative of some very unsocial behavior.
I absolutely refuse to give anything away here, but there *is* a sociopath in the book, and our first person narrator has a very big surprise for you in store.
Although I loved the book and recommend it highly, I felt that the ending did fall short of the entire story's potential, especially with one character kind of left stranded out on his limb tidying up another character's loose threads. I felt he should have been visited in more depth before leaving him dry like Mr. Adams did. It was almost as if Adams could have kept going for another 50 pages, there was surely enough left to uncover, and enough blood to bathe in one last time.
This book is an exciting look into the sociopathic mind, with startling twists and very deeply fathomed characterizations. If you like sick, and you like twisted, grab a copy of The Sociopath to fill in those gaping wounds in your fleshy bookcase. Enjoy!
Chilling!.......2001-05-09
Donald Eckman was dying. Nothing would stop that, but he planned to take quite a few low-lifes with him! Eckman was a man who had it all planned out and was cold-blooded enough to do it.
Roosevelt Holmes had raped, maimed, and/or killed over thirty-four women, girls, and boys. Yet his sentence was only two years. He was released early, for good behavior, thinking he could easily continue if he was just a bit more careful. However, he was not the only one counting down his days and hours until freedom.
Nancy Rausch kept tabs on Holmes. She planned her revenge carefully, all the way down to how she would castrate him. Chris would help her get him. Chris also had planned revenge...on the world! Chris had set up a way to rid the Earth of much of its scum. A bit of IVG-5 introduced into the Minneapolis waterworks would work for starts.
***** Never have I read a book like this one. We have all heard of Hannibal. He was labeled (correctly, I might add) a Cannibal. Now meet those with the label Sociopath. Many with this mental disorder get rich because they do things "normal" people would not dare. Others end up poor, due to the same reason, or in prison. But some are like this!
Here is a book that will keep you up late into the night reading! You will never look at the strangers around you the same way again! Highly recommended reading! *****
Book Description
"The Adventures of Two Sociopaths" is a fictional account of the friendship that evolves between a sociology professor and one of her students. Set on Rutger's Cook College campus in New Jersey, the story follows Professor Lisa Larson and Brandee Surtain through an unlikely yet humorous romp inside the world of the rich and famous. Their adventures begin after Brandee completes an assignment for her sociology class, suggesting a hypothetical solution to the problems we face as a society today. After discovering they've both endured similar unhappy childhoods, Professor Larson agrees to Brandee's wild scheme to purchase a remote island and place society's most influential people there on a permanent basis. With the aid of a former drug smuggler named Hector and his cousin Ramón, the two sociopaths kidnap and relocate people of prominence to an island in the South Pacific called Naraka. Their goal is to capture those who abuse their celebrity by using the media for personal gain. They decide to start with members of the entertainment industry whose powers of persuasion affect society as a whole. Can the two of them change the way America thinks, simply by eliminating the influx of outside influences? Is America's youth lowering their standards at a faster pace than ever? Are we doomed as a nation to emulate and worship adolescent pop singers and high-priced athletes? Lisa and Brandee form a partnership to slow down the deterioration of our society's infrastructure. Along the way, they learn a lot about themselves and the ironies that brought them together.
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