(Houghton Mifflin, 2005; Mariner Books, 2006)
Reviewer: Steven Hendlin, Ph.D.

What do you call the romantic coupling of a seemingly naïve and susceptible male psychologist literally sucked in by an alluring and sociopathic female attorney oozing with vengeance? Answer: A disaster waiting to happen.

In The Practice of Deceit, veteran novelist Elizabeth Benedict offers a moderately-paced and thoughtful cautionary tale, reminding us what hell may ensue when appearances are prematurely taken as reality and sexual attraction and emotional neediness are allowed to dictate behavior. This is literary fiction that is smartly written and goes down smoothly with no bitter aftertaste.

Benedict presents her male protagonist as a Manhattan psychologist in his forties, never married, who has spent his years bedding more than his share of shapely young women. It is not easy for a woman to write a male in the first person convincingly but Benedict does a good job of it. Although Dr. Eric Lavender uses his psychological knowledge to attract the bimbos, he is no match for the sociopathically deceptive and cunning Colleen, a divorce attorney he meets by chance shortly after the death of his father.

I don’t want to spoil the plot—one which might scare the bejesus out of any license-carrying psychologist who thinks he’s mentally one up on damn near everyone because of his particular expertise in assessing personality and motivation. But let’s just say that Colleen exemplifies the old Nixon saying: “If you’ve got ‘em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” She seduces this poor schlub (Yiddish: blockhead), taking advantage of his breast fetish by allowing him to satisfy one of his lifelong fantasies— sucking her milk engorged breasts and puffy nipples. It’s not surprising to learn that Benedict wrote a whole book on how to write sex scenes in fiction, because this scene is certainly not your standard erotic fare.

Suffice to say, naively trusting Colleen is the start of a downward spiral of events that eventually leads to Lavender ending up in a holding tank, after being arrested for suspected sexual molestation of his stepdaughter. Think: life on the brink.

The basic flaw with this story is that it shouldn’t take more than three years for a qualified psychologist to assess the personality and character strengths and weaknesses of his girlfriend/wife. While this point may not be questioned by the vast majority of readers who couldn’t care less, there was a quality of verisimilitude missing for me because of it.

I’d like to think that any psychologist worth his ink-blots would take his time before committing himself to a woman by asking a lot of detailed and probing questions about her past and by making sure he experienced her in a number of different situations. I mean, if we recommend that patients take at least a year before making a relationship commitment, can’t we be expected to do the same?

Our shrink seems capable of professionally assessing and treating his patients—and even develops some reputation for his expertise—but falls woefully short when it comes to assessing the personality make-up of a woman for whom he too-quickly ends up changing his life. And that’s not the half of it.

Ok, so maybe he was just vulnerable after the death of his father and less on-guard than he otherwise ought to have been. But this guy moves in lock, stock and barrel and has a child with The Bitch before he begins to wake up and smell the deceit.

While his weakness at applying what is good for the goose (patients) to the gander (his girlfriend) allows for an interesting plot in the search for love and family contentment, it doesn’t exactly make psychologists look all that able to resist the everyday temptations, rationalizations and blind spots that befall the non-psychologically trained person. And maybe this was one of Benedict’s messages. But Dr. Lavender comes off as a bit too schluby for me to suspend my disbelief.

My objection aside, The Practice of Deceit is good stuff by an author who clearly shows the talent to do what I find essential in high-level fiction: Not only create a story that pulls me along but— without haste and with a flair for turning a phrase—unveils the complex psychological underbelly of its characters, and therefore, touches our everyday lives.

Steven Hendlin, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Newport Beach, California. He writes a monthly column for Coast Magazine entitled “Shrink Rap.” His last book was “Overcoming the Inheritance Taboo” (Penguin/Plume).