Martin Kantor

It's an ok intro to AvPD, but I have five major concerns with the book:

(1) At first glance it would seem a book suitable for self-help, but in the end Kantor doesn't have much advise to give on this matter — of 20 chapters, only chapter 20 is devoted to self-help. Useful advise can be extracted from the other chapters, but nor Part I (Description and causation of AvPD) or Part II (Therapy) have targeted content in this direction. A survey of the contents shows the book would be more appropriate to an undergrad psychology student, than a person with AvPD.

(2) Stylistically, it's poorly written. The facts and the analysis are mixed together and the presentation is unclear. When multiple case examples are given, it's not obvious when one finishes and other starts. The author seems to constructs his paragraphs at whim.

(3) There is some highly questionable content, such as:

(3.1) Using a bad review of one of his books as an example in the Readiness to Anger chapter. Quoting from Chapter 1, pg. 13:
"Here is an excerpt from a negative 'review' on Amazon.com of Distancing, my earlier book on AvPD, with the review a missile that I believe hints at the irrational anger (she got the facts wrong, perhaps having read only enough to make her mad) just alluded to: (...)"

(3.2) Using his daughter and personal acquaintances as case examples is a practice a find ethically deplorable. It's as if Kantor is writing this book to process some his own broken relationships:

Chapter 2, pg. 34:
"A personal friend, a dental school student, called me up once or twice a day to unload his serious emotional problems on me. After several months of this, he suddenly stopped calling. Concerned, I called him up to ask him what was wrong. To my question, he replied, “I can no longer speak to you. I just got an important sensitive academic position and I cannot even let on that I know you. You know much too much about me for that.”

Chapter 2, pg. 35:
"My daughter Carley was a girl all set to go to nursing school. The hospital where she worked (...). Cutting off her entire old personal history and roots was her way to avoid taking responsibility for her life by escaping into a totally new fantasy world, where nothing is expected of you in terms of developing yourself and working at a career, and all that is now demanded of you is to be physically present for your husband.

(4) He gives the impression of thinking too high of himself when, after pathologizing bad reviews of his books, goes on to print the praise he has been sent by mail.

(5) Some analyses of his patients seem to not be written by a contemporary psychologist, but rather by a not-so-good disciple of Freud after having too much cocaine:
"We discovered that for him, stinging insects symbolized his critical mother, as did the preacher in church and the policeman on the street. We further learned that he could not take the train because the moving train symbolized his impulses and train crashes the dreadful consequences of having and expressing them. Driving over the bridge symbolized his fears of forward movement and success—reaching the pinnacle, only to be mauled physically (i.e., castrated) as a consequence
of soaring."… (altro)