Intended for the general reader, this masterful compilation probes the psychology of suicide, revealing the latest research and spotlighting global efforts to reduce the million suicide deaths each year. Exceeding previously available studies in both scope and depth, the two-volume Suicide: A Global Issue explores and explains both why suicides—and suicide attempts—occur and what can be done to prevent them. The first volume, Understanding, considers factors that may play into the choice to take one's life, discussing forces as varied as culture, psychology, religion, and biology. The second volume, Prevention, covers steps that can be taken to prevent suicide, whether individually or by society as a whole. Articles by widely respected experts consider questions such as why people kill themselves, why some countries have extremely high suicide rates, and whether the treatment of suicidal individuals actually prevents them from taking their lives. Each chapter presents incidents, research, and actions from nations around the globe, as well as from the United States.

The main purpose of this book is to provide the first comprehensive analysis of suicide in psychiatric patients. 95 per cent of those who commit suicide had a psychiatric disorder and yet suicide is rarely investigated in psychiatric patients. The book provides a relevant contribution to the prediction and prevention of suicide. This is a first book devoted to the subject with comprehensive chapters, including epidemiology, risk factors, preventive strategies and available treatments.

This handbook provides a comprehensive summary of the most important and exciting advances in our understanding of suicide and self-injury and our ability to predict and prevent it.

This book will help the reader to understand the suicidal mind from a phenomenological point of view, shedding light on the feelings of suicidal individuals and also those of clinicians. In accordance with the importance that the phenomenological approach attaches to subjectivity and sense of self as the starting points for knowledge, emphasis is placed on the need for the clinician to focus on the subjective experiences of the at-risk individual, to set aside prior assumptions, judgments, or interpretations, and to identify ways of bridging gaps in communication associated with negative emotions. The vital importance of empathy is stressed, drawing attention to the insights offered by neuroimaging studies and the role of mirror neurons in social cognition. It is widely acknowledged that when a clinician meets a person who wants to die by suicide, the clinician does not fully understand what is going on inside the mind of that individual. This book recognizes that any approach to suicide prevention must promote understanding of suicidal thoughts and feelings. The awareness that it fosters and the innovative perspectives that it presents will appeal to a wide readership.

In the wake of a suicide, the most troubling questions are invariably the most difficult to answer: How could we have known? What could we have done? And always, unremittingly: Why? Written by a clinical psychologist whose own life has been touched by suicide, this book offers the clearest account ever given of why some people choose to die. Drawing on extensive clinical and epidemiological evidence, as well as personal experience, Thomas Joiner brings a comprehensive understanding to seemingly incomprehensible behavior. Among the many people who have considered, attempted, or died by suicide, he finds three factors that mark those most at risk of death: the feeling of being a burden on loved ones; the sense of isolation; and, chillingly, the learned ability to hurt oneself. Joiner tests his theory against diverse facts taken from clinical anecdotes, history, literature, popular culture, anthropology, epidemiology, genetics, and neurobiology--facts about suicide rates among men and women; white and African-American men; anorexics, athletes, prostitutes, and physicians; members of cults, sports fans, and citizens of nations in crisis. The result is the most coherent and persuasive explanation ever given of why and how people overcome life's strongest instinct, self-preservation. Joiner's is a work that makes sense of the bewildering array of statistics and stories surrounding suicidal behavior; at the same time, it offers insight, guidance, and essential information to clinicians, scientists, and health practitioners, and to anyone whose life has been affected by suicide.

For much of his thirties, Jesse Bering thought he was probably going to kill himself. He was a successful psychologist and writer, with books to his name and bylines in major magazines. But none of that mattered. The impulse to take his own life remained. At times it felt all but inescapable. Bering survived. And in addition to relief, the fading of his suicidal thoughts brought curiosity. Where had they come from? Would they return? Is the suicidal impulse found in other animals? Or is our vulnerability to suicide a uniquely human evolutionary development? In Suicidal, Bering answers all these questions and more, taking us through the science and psychology of suicide, revealing its cognitive secrets and the subtle tricks our minds play on us when we’re easy emotional prey. Scientific studies, personal stories, and remarkable cross-species comparisons come together to help readers critically analyze their own doomsday thoughts while gaining broad insight into a problem that, tragically, will most likely touch all of us at some point in our lives. But while the subject is certainly a heavy one, Bering’s touch is light. Having been through this himself, he knows that sometimes the most effective response to our darkest moments is a gentle humor, one that, while not denying the seriousness of suffering, at the same time acknowledges our complicated, flawed, and yet precious existence. Authoritative, accessible, personal, profound—there’s never been a book on suicide like this. It will help you understand yourself and your loved ones, and it will change the way you think about this most vexing of human problems.

Although self-inference processes -- the ways individuals make judgments about themselves -- have been studied in social psychology and sociology for many years, a distinct literature on this topic has not emerged due to the diversity of relevant issues. The editors of this current volume cull recent social psychological research and theory on self-inference processes and identify some of the common themes in this area of study. The specific topics covered in this volume include: ` how people infer their emotions, personality traits, and body images from relevant information * factors influencing the self-concept, identity, and self-standards * the impact of self-inferences on interpersonal relations * conditions motivating escape from the self The book is written for researchers and graduate level students in clinical, social, developmental, health, and personality psychology.

Re-reads a major theorist in terms of the current crisis in sovereignty and global capital. Taking de Man's recently published manuscript Textual Allegories as a point of departure, 13 experts, themselves significant voices in contemporary literary theory, revisit de Man's account of Rousseau and what he calls a 'Theotropic Allegory' (the second to last step before 'Political Allegory', on the road toward a general theory of Textual Allegory). They frame de Man's readings of Rousseau in a 'post-theoretical' landscape concerned with political theology, occupied with the transformation of the western model of sovereignty, and faced with the apparent collapse of the capitalist global contract. The volume is framed by an introduction by leading de Man scholar, Martin McQuillan, and concludes with an original and previously unpublished text by Paul de Man.

Suicide kills and maims victims; traumatizes loved ones; preoccupies clinicians; and costs health care and emergency agencies fortunes. It should therefore demand a wealth of theoretical, scientific, and fiduciary attention. But in many ways it has Why? Although the answer to this question is multi-faceted, this volume not. supposes that one answer to the question is a lack of elaborated and penetrating theoretical approaches. The authors of this volume were challenged to apply their considerable theoretical wherewithal to this state of affairs. They have risen to this challenge admirably, in that several ambitious ideas are presented and developed. Ifever a phenomenon should inspire humility, it is suicide, and the volume’s authors realize this. Although several far-reaching views are proposed, they are pitched as first approximations, with the primary goal of stimulating still more conceptual and empirical work. A pressing issue in suicide science is the topic of clinical interventions, and clinical approaches more generally. Here too, this volume contributes, covering such topics as therapeutics and prevention, comorbidity, special populations, and clinicalrisk factors.