Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD) is an extremely widespread, devastating disorder that generally goes unrecognized or, if recognized, is misrepresented by what little scientific literature there is on the topic. This title guides both patients and those trying to help them.

Emphasizing diagnosis, causality, and holistic treatment, this is the only book offering a full discussion of Avoidant Personality Disorder for therapists and sufferers. Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD) is an extremely widespread, devastating disorder that generally goes unrecognized or misrepresented by what little scientific literature there is on the topic. Therapists are left mystified about how to diagnose and treat it, and patients and other sufferers are at a loss as to what is wrong and how to go about correcting it. The Essential Guide to Overcoming Avoidant Personality Disorder is the only book available to guide both patients and those trying to help them. This thorough and much-needed volume explores the development of AvPD and presents a holistic view of its causes from the psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, and interpersonal perspectives. It offers an extensive section on diagnostic criteria that will be useful to sufferers and therapists, and it discusses the various therapies for AvPD. Finally, and perhaps most critically, the book provides a section intended as a guide for psychiatrists—and a self-help guide for sufferers—including a day-by-day, one-step-at-a-time, monthly guide on how to overcome AvPD.

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.

Explains the subtle but pervasive aspects of sadomasochism that affect everyday relationships across our lives, detailing when the power and control dynamics become neurotic and describing actions that can be taken to better individuals and improve society. For most people, a whip-wielding, leather-clad sexual subculture comes to mind when they hear the phrase "sadomasochism." But as psychiatrist Martin Kantor explains in this book, sadomasochism is generally about power, control, dominance, and submission, dynamics that are subtle and pervasive in all of our lives, from home life to work life to social interactions including political arenas. The bottom line: sadomasochism is about the giving or receiving pleasure from the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation and both pain and pleasure can be purely emotional, no sexual or physical context necessary. Kantor deconstructs sadomasochism to show us how it affects each of us, consciously or not. He explains the "life phases" of sadomasochism, the role early trauma plays in this self-defeating action when it reaches a neurotic level, and the damage it does to individuals, loved ones, and society. This ground-breaking book will appeal to psychology students and researchers, as well as general readers with an interest in psychology.

The only guide currently available on paranoia, this work offers a method for understanding, coping with, and treating this widespread and neglected condition, which can result in serious social consequences from isolation to violence in schools and the workplace.

Offers gay men a constructive approach to having lifelong love and companionship.