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How to Protect Yourself Against a Ruthless Manipulator
by Martha StoutPh.D.
From Dr. Martha Stout's influential work The Sociopath Next Door, we learned how to identify a sociopath. Now she tells us what we actually can do about it.
While the best way to deal with a sociopath is to avoid him or her entirely, sometimes circumstance doesn't allow for that. What happens when the time comes to defend yourself against your own child, a ruthless ex-spouse, a boss or another person in power? Using the many chilling and often heartbreaking emails and letters she has received over the years, Dr. Martha Stout uncovers the psychology behind the sociopath's methods and provides concrete guidelines to help navigate these dangerous interactions.
Organized around categories such as destructive narcissism, violent sociopaths, sociopathic coworkers, sociopathy in business and government, and the sociopath in your family, Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door contains detailed explanation and commentary on how best to react to keep the sociopath at bay. Uniting these categories is a discussion of changing psychological theories of personality and sociopathy and the enduring triumph of conscience over those who operate without empathy or concern for others. By understanding the person you're dealing with and changing the rules of the game, you'll be able to gain the upper hand and escape the sociopath's influence.
Whether you're fighting a custody battle against a sociopathic ex or being gaslighted by a boss or coworker, you'll find hope and help within these pages. With this guide to disarming the conscienceless, Dr. Stout provides an incisive new examination of human behavior and conceptions of normality, and gives readers the tools needed to protect themselves.
"Though her tone tends toward alarmism, Stout ends on a refreshingly optimistic note, lauding the ability of the 'courageous and compassionate individual' to stand up against sociopaths. Her often grim but ultimately reassuring primer will leave readers feeling better prepared to face the malign individuals in their lives." - Publishers Weekly
"Dr. Stout's book is mandatory reading on how to effectively deal with sociopaths before you get hurt." - Joe Navarro, former FBI special agent and the author of Dangerous Personalities
This information about Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Martha Stout, Ph.D., served on the faculty in psychology in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School for more than twenty-five years and was a clinical associate at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She practiced as a clinical psychologist specializing in recovery from psychological trauma and PTSD. Dr. Stout has taught psychology at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York, the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, and Wellesley College. She is the author of, among numerous other publications, The Sociopath Next Door, The Paranoia Switch, and The Myth of Sanity.
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A visceral thriller, which brings you into the grip of a true sociopath and shows you how, in the quest to survive such ruthlessness, every minute counts.
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it...
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