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Distancing Avoidant Personality Disorder, Revised and Expanded
Martin Kantor
ISBN: 0-275-97829-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97829-7
296 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 11/30/2003
List Price: $62.95 (UK Sterling Price: £43.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: Kantor focuses on a misunderstood but common condition that brings severe and pervasive anxiety about social contacts and relationships. He offers psychotherapists a specific method for helping avoidants overcome their fear of closeness and commitments, and offers a guide for avoidants themselves to use for developing lasting, intimate, anxiety-free relationships.

Fear of intimacy and commitment keeps avoidants from forming close, meaningful relationships. Types of avoidants can include confirmed bachelors, femme fatales, and people who form what appear to be solid relationships only to tire of them and leave with little warning, often devastating their partners/victims. Kantor takes us through the history of this disorder, and into clinical treatment rooms, to see and hear how avoidants think, feel, and recover. He offers psychotherapists a specific method for helping avoidants overcome their fear of closeness and commitments, and offers a guide for avoidants themselves to use for developing lasting, intimate, anxiety-free relationships.

The avoidance reduction techniques presented in this book recognize that avoidants not only fear criticism and humiliation, but also fear being flooded by their feelings and being depleted if they express them. Acceptance is feared as much as rejection, because avoidants fear compromising their identity and losing personal freedom. Kantor describes the different therapeutic emphasis required for the four types of avoidants, including those who are withdrawn due to shyness and social phobia, such as people who intensely fear public speaking; those who relate easily, widely, and well, but cannot sustain relationships due to fear of closeness; those whose restlessness causes them to leave steady relationships, often without warning; and those who grow dependent on—and merge with—a single lover or family member and avoid relating to anyone else.
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
    Description
    Why Has Avoidant Personality Disorder Received So Little Attention?
    The Literature
    The Mental Status Profile
    Types of Avoidants
    Healthy Avoidance
    Avoidant People
    Sociocultural Manifestations
    Course
    Comorbid Disorders: Comorbidity with Schizotypal, Schizoid and Affective Disorder
    Comorbid Disorders: Comorbidity with "Neurotic" Spectrum Disorders
    Comorbid Disorders: Comorbidity with Other Personality Disorders
    Cause: An Overview
    Therapy
    An Overview of Avoidance Reduction
    Psychodynamically Oriented Psychotherapy
    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
    Interpersonal Therapy
    Supportive Therapy
    Pharmacotherapy
    Therapeutic Modifications for Treating Avoidants
    Treating Depressed Avoidants
About the Author: MARTIN KANTOR is a psychiatrist in private practice in Boston and New York City. Dr. Kantor has served as Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical School and at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School. Dr. Kantor has been active with residency training programs at hospitals including Massachusetts General and Beth Israel in New York. He is the author of 11 other books, including Passive Aggression (Praeger, 2002) and Homophobia (Praeger, 1998).
LCC Class: 616
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