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with no conscience and that they look just like everyone else.

2. Trust your instincts. If someone seems needlessly cruel, cold, or controlling listen to your intuition!

3.Follow the Rule of Threes... 3 strikes and you're out!

4. Question authority. According to a study discussed in this book, 6 out of 10 of us will blindly obey to the bitter end someone whom we perceive to be a figure of authority in our midst. "I was only following orders" was a disturbing rationalization not too long ago, and the most charismatic sociopaths climb highest in society.

5. Suspect flattery. Sociopaths use others, especially kind people, as their pawns. Beware phrases like, "You're so right!" and "We're so much alike!" as these sorts of attempts to "bond" are also common tools to the sociopath.

6.Do not mistake fear for respect. Especially when dealing with a sociopath in a position of authority, their prescence or the trappings of their position can intimidate or even awe us. These feelings are not the same as respecting an individual or an office.

7. Do not join the game. Do not vote for, marry, give your money, your time, or your sympathy to someone you suspect is a sociopath. Do not respond, maintain contact, attempt to "beat" them or reason with them. Do not make the mistake, as I have, of applying normal rules of courtesy to such individuals. You won't hurt their feelings by being curt as they don't actually experience emotion, and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble by not allowing them access to you. In other words, do not rise to the bait they will, inevitably, dangle before you.

8.Refuse contact and communication. Mental healthcare professionals rarely recommend this recourse. This is the notable exception.

9. Question your tendency to pity too easily. Those of us with conscience suffer from a handicap the remorseless will never know... self-doubt. We must fight our natural urge to forgive and forget in such instances though.

10. Do not attempt to redeem the unredeemable. There is no cure for sociopathy and very little legal recourse for other than gross fracturing of laws. Sad as it may be, difficult as it is to accept... there is nothing positive we can do for or with sociopaths.

11. Never agree, for Any reason to help a sociopath conceal their true character. While it is extremely difficult to detect, it is next to impossible to convince others that a well placed, highly functioning sociopath is, in fact, a sociopath. We may not be able to "out" them, but we certainly don't

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