If a man speaks or acts with evil thoughts, pain follows him - Buddha (A review of The Sociopath next door, by Martha Stout)

I became interested in exploring sociopathy after I finished watching the eight-season Showtime series, Dexter, about a seemingly sociopath blood spatter expert working in the Miami Metro Homicide unit.  Dexter was trained by his homicide investigator father and Evelyn Vogel, a neuropsychiatrist specializing in profiling psychopaths, to be a benevolent serial killer.  Dexter would investigate, hunt down and kill other serial killers and murderers.  What got me interested in the subject was Dr. Vogel’s reassurances to Dexter that as a sociopath, Dexter was perfect and “exactly as nature intended you to be”; “I believe that psychopaths are not a mistake of nature. They're a gift….They're Alpha wolves, who helped the human race survive long enough to become civilized. An indispensable demographic.”, to which Dexter replied “Well, one of your indispensable demographics is still out there killing.”

So I pondered whether the 4% of the population inflicted with ‘lack of consciousness’ is a necessary order of life, and to this book I went looking for answers.  As a point of reference, the incidence of anorexia in the general population is 3.43%, and schizophrenia which gets a lion’s share of mental malady coverage is only 1%.  Sociopaths affect society far more profoundly than many popularly debated and written about psychoses, but when a sociopath commits a publicized crime, the sociopathy diagnosis is often lacking.

Prior to watching Dexter, I had the impression of violent and evil strongly associated with sociopathy, and I suspect most people do as well.  This, as Dr. Stout argues, is not the case.  Sociopaths can have differing tendencies, and many are nonviolent, but most are deviant and share the following characteristics:  Lack of empathy, guilt, connection to others, love.  “The absence of an intervening sense of responsibility based in emotional attachment is associated with an endless, usually futile preoccupation with domination, and results in substantial life disruption and eventual deterioration.”

Along the way, I got answers to:  What is the purpose of conscience?  Lack of conscience, why is it such a negative thing, and why does it lead sociopaths to commit evil acts?  Why can’t people with lack of conscience behave normally otherwise?  What sorts of behaviors are a consequence of lack of conscience?  Are there remedies or cures for sociopaths?  Do they want to be helped? What are the signs to look for in a sociopath, and how do people protect themselves in an encounter with one?

Great book even though it may be dated from its 2005 publication year.