The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus The Rest Of Us

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness.

Martha Stout is an American psychologist and writer who specializes in working with people who have experienced trauma and/or had post-traumatic stress disorder. This work informed her decision to write books on the subject of ASPD, as she hoped that she could prevent future trauma by informing others of the symptoms and tendencies of people with ASPD. She worked at Harvard Medical School in the psychiatry department for 25 years and taught psychology at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. She has written four books, including Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door, The Sociopath Next Door, The Myth of Sanity, and The Paranoia Switch.

Although The Sociopath Next Door is now over 20 years old, it was an influential work in that it brought the subject to the forefront of public awareness and dispelled the myth that people with ASPD are always violent or easy to identify. The book also made a complicated psychological concept more accessible to the general public. It is written in everyday language, with examples and scenarios drawn from daily life. The book prompted readers to think harder about what they were encountering in their daily lives and assess the possibility that someone in their lives was harming them due to a mental condition.