Understanding Writer's Block - by Martin Kantor (Hardcover)

About the Book

This innovative book explains writer's block (and other creative blocks) as a symptom of a larger disorder. These disorders can affect all creative and would-be creative people. This book is the first to treat writer's block from a classic, DSM-IV diagnostic perspective. Kantor identifies 10 kinds of writer's block, classified according to the underlying disorder that causes that block. Included in the text is a discussion of the general characteristics of blockage and how the therapist can distinguish between acute and chronic forms of block, as well as an exploration into the causes of block. With this book, Kantor has laid the foundation for the development of a successful treatment approach. Throughout the text, case studies drawn from historical sources and the author's patients illustrate the various kinds of block.

Book Synopsis

Though writer's block creates personal havoc and disastrous social consequences, it is not usually viewed as a mental disorder. Here is an in-depth study, a foundation for the development of a treatment approach more sensitive and precise than any currently available.

About the Author

Martin Kantor, MD is a Harvard psychiatrist who has been in full private practice in Boston and New York City, and active in residency training programs at several hospitals, including Massachusetts General and Beth Israel in New York. He also served as Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical School and as Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey--New Jersey Medical School. He is currently a full-time medical author, the author of more than a dozen other books, including Homophobia, Second Edition (Praeger 2009); Uncle Sam's Shame: Inside the Veteran's Administration (Praeger 2008); Lifting the Weight: Understanding Depression in Men: Its Causes and Solutions (Praeger 2007); The Psychopathy of Everyday Life: How Antisocial Personality Disorder Affects All of Us (Praeger, 2006); Understanding Paranoia: A Guide for Professional, Families, and Sufferers (Praeger 2004); Distancing: Avoidant Personality Disorder, Revised and Expanded (Praeger, 2003), Passive-Aggression: A Guide for the Therapist, the Patient, and the Victim (Praeger, 2002), Treating Emotional Disorder in Gay Men (Praeger, 1999), and Homophobia (Praeger, 1998).