All I can say is WOW. This wasn't what I was expecting. There was a chapter summary at the front of the book that helped me to know what was going on with each chapter. Case stories helped explain what was being talked about.

This is a book about how to deal with sociopaths. The book does a pretty good job of explaining how you can tell if you have a sociopath of your very own. As the authors argue, recognizing this is indeed an important part of the battle. Sociopaths work to break down their victims, making the victims insecure, and making the victims believe that they are at fault for their troubled situation. Recognizing that these people are in your life and who they are is necessary to taking the next step: dealing with the sociopath. Unfortunately, this is one of the places where I felt like the book fell flat. There actually aren't all that many practical suggestions for dealing with a real, live sociopath in cases where the sociopath has some degree of power. I was especially interested in how one should deal with a sociopath in a position of power in the workplace, and, sadly, there doesn't seem to be much practical help there. This may be because there actually aren't any solutions.

I was especially interested in the discussions of the sociopath-apath relationship. Basically, the apath is not the instigator, but they're the sidekick to the sociopath, and they back up and validate the sociopath's activities. People may recognize that the sociopath is a bit off, but the apath seems like a regular person, who gives validity to the situation. In other words, the apath is the sociopath's "yes-man." Interesting stuff.

I feel like I learned some valuable things about sociopathy from this book, I just didn't find the practical solutions that would have been helpful to me.