Today's psychiatrists practice in an environment that poses difficult challenges. Both treatment time and duration are limited by insurance requirements; many facilities are understaffed; split treatment arrangements are typical; and high-risk, acutely suicidal patients are admitted to inpatient units for short lengths of stay. In addition, law now plays a pervasive role in the practice of psychiatry. The doctor-patient relationship is no longer defined solely by the involved parties. Clinicians must juggle these requirements and limitations while providing the very best care to their patients, especially those at high risk. Preventing Patient Suicide: Clinical Assessment and Management provides the wisdom of Dr. Robert I. Simon's vast clinical experience, combined with the latest insights from the evidence-based psychiatric literature, to offer a cutting-edge survey of suicide prevention and management techniques. The author: Addresses sudden improvement in high-risk suicidal patients, a phenomenon both common and perilous, with techniques for determining whether the improvement is real or feigned. Explores in depth the misuse of suicide risk assessment forms, with emphasis on their inherent limitations. Examines the many entrenched myths and traditions about suicide, exposing them to the critical light of evidence-based medicine, including the concept of "imminent suicide risk" and the myth of "passive suicide ideation". Discusses the continuum of chronic and acute high-risk suicidal patients, the fluidity with which one can become the other, and the difficulty in assessing these patients. Explores how the law and psychiatry interact in frequently occurring clinical situations, and the importance of therapeutic risk management. In addition, the book contains a variety of features that illuminate the subject and enhance the reader's understanding, including: Inclusion of illustrative case studies, combined with commentary on commonly occurring but complex clinical situations. Key points at the end of each chapter that identify critical information. A Suicide Risk Assessment Self-Test, a teaching instrument that consists of fifty questions designed to enhance clinician suicide risk assessment by incorporating evidence-based risk and protective factors. Dr. Simon provides a nuanced, empathic, yet pragmatic perspective on identifying, assessing, and managing the suicidal patient while successfully navigating a complex legal and clinical environment that poses its own risks to the practitioner.

This volume is a guide for the hospital workforce related to suicide prevention. Written by experts in the field, this text is the only one that also includes the revised DSM-5 guidelines. It is also the first to cover both prevention in one concise guide, offering a well-rounded approach to long- and short-term prevention. The book begins by establishing the neurobiology of suicide before discussing the populations at risk for suicide and the various environments where they may present. The book addresses the epidemiology, including groups at heightened risk; etiology, including several types of risk factors; prevention, including large-scale community-based activities; and postvention, including the few evidence-based approaches that are currently available. Unlike any other text on the market, this book does not simply focus on one particular demographic; rather, the book covers a wide range of populations and concerns, including suicide in youths, racial minorities, patients suffering from serious mental and physical illnesses, psychopharmacological treatment in special populations, and a wide array of challenging scenarios that are often not addressed in the very few up-to-date resources available. Suicide Prevention is an outstanding resource for psychiatrists, psychologists, hospitalists, primary care doctors, nurses, social workers, and all medical professionals who may interface with suicidal patients.

Approximately 1 million people commit suicide world-wide annually and around 10 million attempt suicide each year. Suicide is a major public health problem throughout the world, and major efforts are currently being made to help reduce these numbers. However, suicide is the result of complex interactions between a range of factors, including historical, psychological, cultural, biological, and social, and any approach to treating the problem of suicide has to consider all these factors. This new edition of the Oxford Textbook of Suicidology and Suicide Prevention has been thoroughly updated and expanded since publication of the first edition in 2009. This comprehensive resource covers all aspects of suicidal behaviour and suicide prevention from a number of different perspectives, including its underlying religious and cultural factors; its political, social and economic causes; its psychiatric and somatic determinants; and its public health impacts. The new edition includes several new clinically focussed chapters devoted to major psychiatric disorders and their relation to suicide, including mood and anxiety disorders, substance abuse, psychosis/schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, and personality disorders. It also includes a fully updated section on psychometric scales used for measuring suicidal behaviour and instruments used in suicide preventative interventions. Part of the authoritative Oxford Textbooks in Psychiatry series, this second edition will continue to serve as the key reference source for both researchers and professionals working in the areas of suicidology and suicide prevention, including psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, public health specialists, and neuroscientists.

This book explores the links between self-harm and suicide and presents international approaches to training in suicide prevention for professionals. It debates the legality and morality of assisted self-harm and analyse the rate and causes of suicide among specific groups, people in custody and people with mental illnesses.

The International Handbook of Suicide Prevention, 2nd Edition, presents a series of readings that consider the individual and societal factors that lead to suicide, it addresses ways these factors may be mitigated, and presents the most up-to-date evidence for effective suicide prevention approaches. An updated reference that shows why effective suicide prevention can only be achieved by understanding the many reasons why people choose to end their lives Gathers together contributions from more than 100 of the world’s leading authorities on suicidal behavior—many of them new to this edition Considers suicide from epidemiological, psychological, clinical, sociological, and neurobiological perspectives, providing a holistic understanding of the subject Describes the most up-to-date, evidence-based research and practice from across the globe, and explores its implications across countries, cultures, and the lifespan

Over recent years research into suicidal behaviour has burgeoned, and the third edition of this successful pocketbook reflects major developments in the evidence base and clinical practice. New chapters cover risk assessment and system-wide approaches to suicide prevention, and the role of clinical guidelines and national policies is also considered. This edition features extensive updates to the epidemiology of suicidal behaviour across the world, and also considers the individual and societal causes of suicide, particularly the effect of recent economic downturns in many countries. The chapter on biological factors includes the current research on the genetics and neuroscience of suicide. The chapters on interventions discuss the latest evidence from systematic reviews and new randomized controlled trials and highlight implications for clinical practice. The positive and negative impacts of the web and social media on suicidal behaviour are a major focus of research activity and new sections have been included to reflect this. The 'Frequently Asked Questions' section was well received in the previous edition and this has been revised further to include new/updated FAQs on euthanasia, assisted suicide, and suicide martyrdom. Part of the Oxford Psychiatry Library series, this useful handbook is an invaluable resource and quick-reference guide.

Finally, a book that explains suicide using the latest research in suicidology. A must-read for mental health professionals and the survivors of suicide who want to understand why suicide happens. The material in this book should be incorporated into the curriculum of psychology and psychiatry because suicide is such a vital topic that is hardly covered in medical schools due to the lack of a coherent theory of the brain in general and suicide in particular. This is an important book for all professionals who deal with mental disorders in general and suicide in particular. It is the author's fifth book where suicide is explained, not as a mysterious process, but as a natural consequence of the reactions of the brain under certain conditions when suffering mental disorders. The author begins with a brief summary of the statistics of the whos, the hows, and the wheres of suicide. This gives us a clear idea of the magnitude of the problem of suicide, of the cost, not only in lives, but of the emotional toll of the survivors, as well as the financial burdens on society as a whole. Then, as an important first step to understanding the medical community's standard approaches to mental disease, he reviews briefly the current psychiatric terminology and the diagnostic tools concerning mental disorders. He presents the most accepted current theories and models of suicide. He explains what a psychiatric emergency is and what to expect if one ever encounters such a situation. And he explains how suicide risk assessment is currently done, along with other important considerations. He proceeds to explain in everyday language, where possible, his theory of how the brain works, beginning with a simple explanation of how neurons communicate with each other. Later he explains how the brain controls the body and how we see with the back of our heads, how memory systems become a logical extension or expansion of our sensory and motor systems. Awareness and attention are introduced, first as an evolutionary tool that aids the senses gather more information from the environment and, ultimately, as tools that aid in thinking, reasoning, and constructing our past, our lives, and our identities. But all this would mean nothing without the introduction of emotions and how the brain constructs contexts. He explains how emotions are an integral part of memories and how these are related to contexts, how, basically, the brain has created a very concise and compact filing memory system. A clear explanation of how emotions are triggered, regulated, and dissipated is next. These lead to a learned discussion of how these various systems can go haywire causing mental disorders. A brief, but perhaps new and revolutionary approach to these mental disorders is presented next, including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Delirium, Dementia, and Other Amnestic Disorders, Manic Depression and Depression, and Schizophrenia. Ultimately, it becomes clear how, under certain conditions, these disorders can lead to suicide. The difference between attempters and completers is also explained. He then presents a suicide autopsy as an exercise to show how varied the opinions of experts in the field of suicidology are and compares it to his own theories and lets the reader decide for himself who is closer to the truth. The fallacy of many expert opinions of where research needs to go is presented. The book gives a few words of advice on various therapies and the rationality of their approaches and cautions against their limitations. The book devotes a chapter to suicide prevention in the military and how these efforts are bound to fail and another chapter on suicide prevention. The author makes important suggestions of how to prevent suicide and lessen suicide rates, particularly among the young. And lastly, a chapter is devoted to the specifics of grief for suicide survivors.

The book looks at secondary suicide prevention (treatment for those thinking about suicide or who are actively suicidal) and is very practically focused. The first chapter reviews the prevention literature and discusses the healthier nation targets. The second chapter outlines solution focused brief therapy and presents the evidence base for this approach. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on risk assessment, management and medication. Chapter 5 presents an in-depth case study and the final chapter presents five shorter case studies. The appendices contain examples of exercises that can be given to clients.

Suicide claims approximately one million lives worldwide each year, but it is increasingly recognized that there are ways in which some of this loss of life can be prevented. Part of the Oxford Psychiatry Library, the second edition of Suicide Prevention places suicide in an historical and contemporaneous context, noting how interpretations of its causes and prevention have changed over the years. This comprehensive but concise pocketbook provides healthcare professionals with an appreciation of the subtle relationship between illness and biological factors, and their interaction with society. The text covers the methodological challenges of demonstrating the effectiveness of intervention due to the low base rate of suicide, and summarizes the latest innovative research, giving practitioners a firm knowledge base in a range of management options which can confidently be utilised for those who are suicidal. Suicide Prevention focuses both on the individual, where specific non-pharmacological as well as medication treatments can be utilised, and on the broader community approaches which can be pursued, ensuring that this practical text is relevant to a broad range of professionals working in the field of suicide prevention.