I heard about this book on the Oprah show. The topic was Sociopaths. The name of the book is THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR by Martha Stout, Ph.D.
I went to Barnes and Noble to look for the book and read this on the back cover:
"1 in 25 ordinary American secretly has no conscience and can do anything at all without feeling guilty. Who is the devil you know?"
and a review:
"A chillingly accurate portrayal of evil - the decent person's guide to indecency." - Jonathan Kellerman
You might wonder why I read so much about narcissists and sociopaths ... Well, it helped me rip off those rose colored glasses of mine! I lived most of my life believing that there is some good in everybody. I was the kind of person who could read a story about the horrific deeds of a serial killer sentenced to death row and I'd be the one to say, "He's just misunderstood."
I really did not GET that some people do bad things because that's who they are. It doesn't really matter WHY they do bad things because answering WHY doesn't undo the bad thing!
I share what I learned with you because reading about the abusers, the narcissists and even the sociopaths reduced my denial system to a more manageable level! I didn't need to believe in the goodness of Aydan and men like Aydan because it was putting my faith in something that may never have existed anyway.
My counselor encouraged me to read books about "them" as a way to separate myself from "them" and realize that the outcome of their behavior is the outcome of THEIR behavior and it has nothing to do with me! I can't do one thing to make life better for these kind of men. It is not my responsibility or my duty or even a matter of loyalty. I didn't break them. I can't fix them!
As I understand it, most abusers are narcissistic. Narcissists can be very abusive. Not all abusers or narcissists are sociopaths though.
They are all alike in that they feel NO EMPATHY for their victims. They are all alike in that it makes them feel good when they can make other people feel bad because it gives them a feeling of power and control.
Sociopaths are different from the other two in that they are usually more charming, fool more people, and take more victims. Only 1 in 25 people we meet are true sociopaths.
Here's what Dr. Stout says:
Ever wonder what it's like to be a sociopath?
You can frighten a few people ... or - maybe best of all - create situations that cause them to feel bad about themselves. And this is power, especially when the people you manipulate are superior to you in some way. Most invigorating of all is to bring down people who are smarter or more accomplished than you, or perhaps classier, more attractive or popular or morally admirable. This is not only good fun; it is existential vengeance. And without a conscience, it is amazingly easy to do.
I trust that imagining yourself as one of these people feels insane, dangerously so. Insane but real - they even have a label. Many mental health professionals refer to the condition of little or no conscience as "antisocial personality disorder," a non-correctable disfigurement of character that is now thought to be present in about 4 percent of the population - that is to say, one in twenty-five people.
One of the most frequently observed of these traits is a glib and superficial charm that allows the true sociopath to seduce other people,figuratively or literally - a kind of glow or charisma that, initially, can make the sociopath seem more charming or more interesting than most ofthe normal people around him. He or she is more spontaneous. or more intense, or somehow more "complex", or sexier, or more entertaining than everyone else. Sometimes this "sociopathic charisma" is accompanied by a grandiose sense of self worth that may be compelling at first, but upon closer inspection may seem odd or perhaps laughable.
Regardless of how educated or highly placed as adults, they may have a history of early behavior problems, sometimes including drug use or recorded juvenile delinquency, and always including a failure to acknowledge responsibility for any problems that occurred.
They have no trace of empathy and no genuine interest in bonding emotionally with a mate. Once the surface charm is scraped off, their marriages are loveless, one-sided, and almost always short-term. If a marriage partner has any value to the sociopath, it is because the partner is viewed as a possession, one that the sociopath may feel angry to lose, but never sad or accountable.
Conscience makes all of these decisions for us, so quietly, automatically, and continually that, in our most creative flights of imagination, we would not be able to conjure the image of an existence without conscience.
Conscienceless people are nearly always invisible to us.
Sociopathy stands alone as a "disease" that causes no dis-ease for the person who has it, no subjective discomfort. Sociopaths are often quite satisfied with themselves and with their lives, and perhaps for this very reason there is no effective "treatment". Typically, sociopaths enter therapy only when they have been court referred. Wanting to get better is seldom the true issue.
In small and large ways, genuine conscience changes the world. Rooted in emotional connectedness, it teaches peace and opposes hatred and saves children. It keeps marriages together and cleans up rivers and feeds dogs and gives gentle replies. It makes individual lives better and increases human dignity overall. It is real and compelling, and it would make us crawl out of our skin if we devastated our neighbor.
4 percent of all people do not have a conscience.
We feel that if someone is bad, he should be burdened with the knowledge that he is bad. It seems to us the ultimate in injustice that a person could be evil, by our assessment, and still feel fine about himself.
This is exactly what seems to happen. For the most part, people whom we assess as evil tend to see nothing at all wrong with their way of being in the world. Sociopaths are infamous for their refusal to acknowledge responsibility for the decisions they make, or for the outcomes of their decisions they make, or for the outcomes of their decisions. In fact, a refusal to see the results of one's bad behavior as having anything to do with one-self - consistent irresponsibility." People without conscience provide endless examples of such stunning "I've done nothing wrong" statements.
When confronted with a destructive outcome that is clearly their doing, they will say, plain and simple, "I never did that," and will to all appearances believe their own direct lie. This feature of sociopathy makes self-awareness impossible, and in the end, just as the sociopath has no genuine relationships with other people, he has only a very tenuous one with himself.
If anything, people without conscience tend to believe their way of being in the world is superior to ours. They often speak of the naivete of other people and their ridiculous scruples, or of their curiosity about why so many people are unwilling to manipulate others, even in the service of their most important ambitions. Or they theorize that all people are the same - unscrupulous, like them - but are dishonestly playacting something mythical called "conscience". By this latter proposition, the only straightforward and honest people in the world are they themselves. They are being "real" in a society of phonies.
What sociopaths envy, and many seek to destroy as a part of the game, is usually something in the character structure of a person with conscience, and strong characters are often specially targeted by sociopaths.
If all you had ever felt toward another person were the cold wish to "win," how would you understand the meaning of love, of friendship, of caring? You would not understand. You would simply go on dominating, and denying, and feeling superior. Perhaps you would experience a little emptiness sometimes, a remote sense of dissatisfaction, but that is all. And with the wholesale denial of your true impact on other people, how would you understand who you were? Once again, you would not.
Sociopaths do not always have a covetous nature - some are very differently motivated - but when lack of conscience and covetousness occur together in the same individual, a fascinating and frightening picture emerges. Since it is simply not possible to steal and have for oneself the most valuable possession of another person - beauty, intelligence, success, a strong character - the covetous sociopath settles for besmirching or damaging enviable qualities in others so that they will not have them, either, or at least not be able to enjoy them so much. As Millon says, "Here, the pleasure lies in taking rather than having."
The covetous sociopath thinks that life has cheated him somehow, has not given him nearly the same bounty as other people, and so he must even the existential score by robbing people, by secretly causing destruction in other lives. He believes he has been slighted by nature, circumstances, and destiny, and that diminishing other people is his only means of being powerful. Retribution, usually against people who have no idea that they have been targeted, is the most important activity in the covetous sociopath's life, his highest priority. The covetous sociopath is the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing.
What is the difference between a sociopath and a criminal? The difference, quite simply, is whether or not he gets caught.
How can any of us live, as well as we do, among significant numbers of destructive liars and con artists and fail to confront them, or even notice them?
Why are conscience bound human beings so blind? And why are they so hesitant to defend themselves, and the ideals and people they are about, from the minority of human beings who possess no conscience at all? A large part of the answer has to do with emotions and thought processes that occur in uswhen we are confronted with sociopathy.
We are afraid, and our sense of reality suffers. We think we are imagining things, or exaggerating, or that we ourselves are somehow responsible for the sociopath's behavior.
I liken sociopathic charm to the animal charisma of other mammals who are predators ... the fascinating charm of the predator is often the last thing the prey ever experiences.
Enhancing the animal charisma of sociopaths, there is our own mild affinity for danger. Conventional wisdom has it that dangerous people are attractive, and when we are drawn to sociopaths, we tend to prove out this cliche. Sociopaths are dangerous in many ways. One of the most conspicuous is their preference for risky situations and choices, and their ability to convince others to take risks along with them. On occasion - but only on occasion - normal people enjoy minor risks and thrills. We will get out our wallets and pay for a ride on a monster roller coaster we cannot imagine surviving, or for a seat in a movie theater showing a bloody thriller we are certain will give us bad dreams. Our normal affinity for the occasional thrill can make the risk-taking sociopath seem all the more charming - at first. Initially, it can be exciting to be invited into the risky scheme, to be associated with the person who is making choices outside of our ordinary boundaries.
When confronted with a sociopath, inspite of our suspicions, we ask ourselves, "Why would a person like that do such a horrible thing?"
Speculate as we may, we cannot imagine why. Nothing sounds believable, so we think there must be a misunderstanding, or maybe we have greatly exaggerated something in our observations. We think this way because the conscience-free mind, and what sociopaths want, what motivates them, is completely outside our experience.
In fact, one of the more striking characteristics of good people is that they are almost never completely sure they are right. Good people question themselves constantly, reflexively, and subject their decisions and actions to the obligation rooted in their attachments to other people.
Most of us comprehend instinctively that there are shades of good and bad, rather than absolute categories. We know in our hearts there is no such thing as a person who is 100 percent good, and so we assume there must be no such thing as a person who is 100 percent bad. And perhaps - philosophically - and certainly theologically - this is true. After all, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the devil himself is a fallen angel. Probably there are no absolutely good human beings and no utterly bad ones. However - psychologically speaking, there definitely are people who possess an intervening sense of constraint based in emotional attachments, and other people who have no such sense. And to fail to understand this is to place people of conscience in danger.
Albert Einstein once said, "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
To do something about shameless people, we must first identify them. So, in our individual lives, how do we recognize the one person out of twenty five who has no conscience and who is potentially dangerous to our resources and our well-being?
The best clue is the "pity play". The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.
Good people will let pathetic individuals get away with murder, so to speak, and therefore any sociopath wishing to continue with his game, whatever it happens to be, should play repeatedly for none other than PITY.
Our emotional vulnerability when we pity is used against us by those who have no conscience (they use our own heart against us).
When these sentiments are wrested out of us by the undeserving, by people whose behavior is consistently antisocial, there is a sure sign that something is wrong, a potentially useful danger signal that we often overlook. Perhaps the most easily recognized example is the battered wife whose sociopathic husband beats her routinely and then sits at the kitchen table, head in his hands, moaning thathe cannot control himself and that he is a poor wretch whom she must find it in her heart to forgive.
When deciding whom to trust, bear in mind that the combination of consistently bad or egregiously inadequate behavior with frequent plays for your pity is as close to a warning mark on a conscienceless person's forehead as you will ever be given. A person whose behavior includes both of these features is not necessarily a mass murderer, or even violent at all, but is still probably not someone you should closely befriend, take on as a business partner, ask to take care of your children, or marry.
When someone doesn't care about you at all like that, having him around really sucks out the peace and joy from your life.
That's enough for today ... Let's look at Dr. Stout's book some more tomorrow ...
( the sociopath next door by Martha Stout, Ph.D. )
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