Passive-Aggression: A Guide for the Therapist, the Patient and the Victim [Hardcover]

Martin Kantor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0275974227 | ISBN-13: 978-0275974220 | Edition: 1

With absorbing detail and deftness, Kantor gives clinical descriptions of the dynamics in this overlooked syndrome: Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder. It is a syndrome rooted in poorly suppressed, thinly disguised, and indirectly unleashed anger. This volume presents a scientifically based approach to the patient that will help him or her deal with anger in a healthier, and sometimes life-saving, way.

An eclectic approach—including psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and interpersonal techniques—is used to answer the two most important questions of passive-aggression: Why is the passive-aggressive so angry? And why cannot he or she express the anger more directly? Therapists can also use this approach to help the victims of passive-aggression and minimize the suffering that occurs in relationships with these difficult people.

Editorial Reviews

Review

?Although the mere existence of Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder is a matter of some debate, psychiatrist Kantor affirms its existence and attempts to bring it into clinical focus. He outlines the disorder based on observed behavior and on insights into origins and reasons for the behavior. The effect on victims is then discussed, with a chapter on how to identify 'pseudovictims.' Finally, an eclectic treatment plan for passive-aggressives and victims is presented, one that focuses on here-and-now interpersonal manifestations of longstanding mntrapsychic conflicts and incorporates adapted cognitive-behavioral methods.?-SciTech Book News

Book Description

Presents cases and theories showing passive-aggression is not just a symptom but is the basis of a real, yet much-ignored, syndrome, Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: Praeger; 1 edition (April 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275974227
• ISBN-13: 978-0275974220
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #374,254 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For many people the hardest life challenge to overcome involves the anxiety associated with finding and keeping intense, lasting, committed, long-term, loving relationships. This anxiety is typically the product of a disorder called AvPD, or Avoidant Personality Disorder. This disorder doesn't take life, but it does ruin it. I have treated so many people I know and love succumbing to its ravages that I felt the urgency to write books that offer the layman a step by step method for coping with and overcoming this emotional difficulty.
Mine are the only books that deal with AvPD as an entity, not as a subvariety of Social Phobia. This is significant because the treatment is different in each case: treatment of social phobia should emphasize cognitive-behavioral interventions, while treatment of AvPD additionally requires uncovering via a psychoanalytically-oriented and interpersonal approach that goes beyond attempting to reverse symptoms directly to halting the process of anxious interpersonal withdrawal through uncovering its roots.
The Essential Guide to Overcoming Avoidant Personality Disorder is the third book I have written on the topic, but it is the first with material primarily directed toward individuals who finding themselves lonely and isolated because of relationship anxiety long for a self-help approach based on understanding to overcome the relational terrors that keep them from experiencing the fulfillment that can only come from closeness and commitment to significant others.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Leads to Healing, August 22, 2002

By 

JAN (St. Paul, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passive-Aggression: A Guide for the Therapist, the Patient and the Victim (Hardcover)

Dr. Kantor has written a book that is unequalled in thoroughness
regarding passive-aggression (PA).

I am not educated in psychology, but rather am a lay person who is a victim of PA. Thus, I speak here regarding what is available to non-professionals on this topic. I have done an exhaustive search for information and found the few other sources available to be somewhat helpful, but not even comparable to this book.

Though I am normally reserved in recommending anything to anyone, I'm comfortable saying that anyone who even suspects that they are impacted by PA should read this book. I have discussed the book with several psychology professionals and they concur that it has helped me immensely in my understanding of the loved ones whose PA impacts me and how it impacts myself and others.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The PA, March 28, 2007

By 

lean_bot (Orange County, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passive-Aggression: A Guide for the Therapist, the Patient and the Victim (Hardcover)

This is a fascinating book. It has definitely changed my general definiton of what PA means. I am amazed at how much material is presented for the 5 types of styles identified. How they are manifested in an individual or in otherwords how it all began in the first place. This book is set up for the therapist but it presented in such a manner that an ordinary person outside this field can understand the concept presented. The author is so thorough with his information that he presents a concept and then vividly illustrates this concept with as many examples that would make the material comprehensible. It explores the relationship between the victim and the PA person. It offers a variety of therapy applications for some of the styles presented.

A unique finding was the book's glimpse of how the therapist can also be PA towards it client;and how the therapist can miss the PA in a person diagnosis.