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<DIV>Visionaries:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Last night on the Auntie E and Brother Carl radio show, Auntie read some
excerpts from the recently published<EM>The Sociopath Next Door</EM> by
Martha Stout, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School, Broadway Books, (a division of
Random House) 2005. Dr. Stout maintains that one out of 25 "ordinary
Americans" is without a conscience, i.e. sociopathic. Auntie read
some of the identifying characteristics of this personality type on
air. I wanted to share a few more with v2020 readers. Remember, very
few sociopaths are serial killers or rapists, but they do effectively destroy
lives in other ways.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"You [i.e. the sociopath] become unimaginably, unassailably, and maybe
even globally successful. Why not? With your big brain, and no
conscience to rein in your schemes <EM>you can do anything at all.</EM></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Or no--let us say you are not quite such a person. Your are
ambitious, yes, and in the name of success you are willing to do all manner of
things that people with conscience would never consider, but you are not an
intellectually gifted individual. Your intelligence is above average
perhaps, and people think of you as smart, maybe even very smart. But you
know in your heart of hearts that you do not have the cognitive wherewithal, or
the creativity, to reach the careening heights of power you secretly dream
about, and this makes you resentful of the world at large, and envious of the
people around you....</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As this sort of person, you ensconce yourself in a niche, or maybe a series
of niches, in which you can have some amount of control over small numbers of
people. .... you do enjoy jobs that afford you a certain under-supervised
control over a few individuals or small groups, preferably people and groups who
are relatively helpless or in some way vulnerable. ...Whatever your
job, you manipulate and bully the people who are under your thumb, as often and
as outrageously as you can without getting fired or held accountable. You
do this for its own sake, even when it serves no purpose except to give you a
thrill. Making people jump means you have power - or this is the way you
see it - and bullying provides you with an adrenaline rush.....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. pg 3-4</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"One of the more frequently observed of these traits [sociopathic] 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 of the
normal people around him. He or she is more spontaneous, or more intense,
or somehow more "complex", or sexier, or more entertaining that 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. ("Someday the world will
realize how special I am.") pg. 7</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>and most chilling,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Sociopaths are infamous for their refusal to acknowledge responsibility
for the 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 ones self - "consistent irresponsibility" in the language of the
American Psychiatric Association - is a corner stone of the antisocial
personality. pgs 49 -50.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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." pg.109</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Dr. Stout, does not offer a hopeful outcome for these personality
types - after all, they can not acknowledge that <U>they</U> are the
problem. Consequently, therapy does not provide insight or impetus
for change. However, for the rest of us - the book is a useful
tool to learn to recognize and avoid these folks.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Rose Huskey</DIV></FONT></FONT></BODY></HTML>