Book Review - Distancing by Martin Kantor

I've just finished reading Martin Kantor's book Distancing: Avoidant Personality Disorder.

In his book, Kantor tries to demonstrate that several seemingly unconnected psychological phenomena can be grouped under the single term Avoidance. Therefore, he doesn't only talk about avoidants similar to most of us here, but he also deals with several other "types of avoidants". Most of us seems to be covered by his Type I: shy or social phobic avoidants. In addition, he proposes that there are three more types of avoidants:

Type II: "Mingles" avoidants. People who are very out-going and appear to be quite sociable, but experience difficulty maintaining or deepening relationships.

Type III: "Seven Year Itch" avoidants. People who are able to form satisfactory relationships, but only for a fixed period. After a certain time, they'll become restless and move on.

Type IV: Dependent/Codependent avoidants. People who have managed to form one close relationship and use that relationship to avoid getting involved with others.

It is my opinion that Mr. Kantor is trying to present four very different types of personality as a single phenomenon with very little evidence that they are similar at all. In the field of science I was trained in, a relatively easy way to make a name for yourself is by unifying two or more apparently unrelated phenomena to one underlying theory. I don't know how this works in psychology, but I suspect that this is Kantor's primary motive for writing his book.
The problem with this approach is that the book becomes fragmented. Advice or analysis for one "type of avoidant" may not apply at all for another "type of avoidant". In some cases, avoidants of different types are advised to do the exact opposite to improve their situation. While Kantor makes sure to explain which approach is suitable for which avoidant type, this does make 75% of the book quite useless for someone expecting to read a text only about real ("Type I") avoidants.

Something that bothered me even more about the book is Kantor's apparent assumption that everything a person does is pre-meditated. This assumption shows in his use of the term "victims" to describe people allegedly harmed by an avoidant's avoidant behaviour. Similarly, he occasionally suggests that it is a person's "goal" to achieve a particular effect his avoidant behaviour has on others. For example, he mentions an anecdote about someone who

"put people off by making jokes on himself. He put himself down by giving himself "back-handed compliments" that were part of his plan to get others to agree that his self-esteem should be as low as it was."

(page 161 of my hard-cover Revised Edition; emphasis mine)

A third qualm I have with this book is that sometimes the author purports to know exactly what motivated a person to behave in a certain way, with no apparent basis. He often mentions as examples unpleasant encounters one of his patients had with others. Sometimes when describing such a run-in, Kantor explains the thought process of the other - who he apparently never met. Either Kantor is just guessing what motivates third parties, or he is omitting an explanation why he would know this third person's thoughts.
The latter coincidentally often involves cases of homophobia. On a few occasions, Kantor ascribes homophobia to latent homosexuality on the part of the phobic. This is entirely in keeping with the author's apparent agenda to present homophobia as a disorder. According to the back cover of Distancing, Kantor has also written a book about homophobia, where he "attempts to pathologize homophobia". Most of the times when he mentions homophobic individuals in this book seem like a subtle advertisement of his other book.

In the portions that actually deal with Type I avoidants, this book offers a decent analysis of possible causes and symptoms, as well as a very general description of a possible treatment approach. But most of this information is stuff I've already read elsewhere. This book has very little new information to offer me in my investigations into AvPD. Since the book doesn't add much to what I've read in other literature about social phobia, those three relatively minor flaws I've mentioned above are enough for me to conclude that this book wasn't worth my money.

One positive note to conclude with: The last chapter of the book has some specific ideas for treatment, with an emphasis on changing cognitive errors. The advice given in this chapter could be very usefull to avoidants trying to improve their situation by changing their way of thinking. It offers some alternatives to the most common errors of thinking avoidants make.
The very last pages of this chapter contain a step-by-step guide how to deal with criticism. This is something I haven't seen in other books yet. Since excessive sensitivity to criticism is a major problem for avoidants, I really appreciated this part at least. Since I just finished the book, I haven't tried to make practical use of this yet, but on first sight it seems quite usefull.

Overall, I can't recommend Distancing if you have already read a few other books on the related issue of social phobia. You're not going to learn anything new from it, except the author's hypothesis that some other disorders and/or behaviours can also be considered avoidance.
If this is the first book you're going to pick up about the problems of avoidance/social anxiety, then it's a fine place to start, but there are many cheaper alternatives.

Thanks for the thorough review, GG, well-written. I've been curious about that book since it seems to be the only one written about our dilemma, but the cost is prohibitive. From other reviews I've read, it sounds like it wouldn't be much practical help to me, and your review sort of confirms that.