This book explains why suicide can be alluring to a person aiming to stop his or her traumatic pain--whether its source is bullying, sexual assault, war combat, or other PTSD-invoking events--and details approaches that can prevent suicide. Suicide has been a taboo topic in Western culture. The mere mention of suicide sparks reactive responses that include medical, moral, spiritual, and religious debates. As a result, the authors open an important discussion here, offering an honest and non-judgmental examination of the many aspects involved in the nature of suicide, explaining that above all, people need to learn how to support those struggling with suicidal thoughts or to intercept their own suicidal thinking. The book also includes an extensive review and evaluation of the many available mental health treatments. Special consideration is given to military suicides. U.S. soldier suicides exceed one per day and continue to rise in all military branches, while veteran suicide rates are even higher, averaging 17 per day. Communities, families, veterans, and service members are in need of tools and insights for coping with, navigating, and exposing the suicidal attitudes affecting many current and former members of the military.
This book explains why suicide can be alluring to a person aiming to stop his or her traumatic pain—whether its source is bullying, sexual assault, war combat, or other PTSD-invoking events—and details approaches that can prevent suicide. Suicide has been a taboo topic in Western culture. The mere mention of suicide sparks reactive responses that include medical, moral, spiritual, and religious debates. As a result, the authors open an important discussion here, offering an honest and non-judgmental examination of the many aspects involved in the nature of suicide, explaining that above all, people need to learn how to support those struggling with suicidal thoughts or to intercept their own suicidal thinking. The book also includes an extensive review and evaluation of the many available mental health treatments. Special consideration is given to military suicides. U.S. soldier suicides exceed one per day and continue to rise in all military branches, while veteran suicide rates are even higher, averaging 17 per day. Communities, families, veterans, and service members are in need of tools and insights for coping with, navigating, and exposing the suicidal attitudes affecting many current and former members of the military.
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.
Critical reading for parents, educators, and anyone wanting to understand the tragic epidemic of suicide—”a powerful book [that] will change people's lives—and, doubtless, save a few" (Newsday). The first major book in a quarter century on suicide—and its terrible pull on the young in particular—Night Falls Fast is tragically timely: suicide has become one of the most common killers of Americans between the ages of fifteen and forty-five. From the author of the best-selling memoir, An Unquiet Mind—and an internationally acknowledged authority on depression—Dr. Jamison has also known suicide firsthand: after years of struggling with manic-depression, she tried at age twenty-eight to kill herself. Weaving together a historical and scientific exploration of the subject with personal essays on individual suicides, she brings not only her remarkable compassion and literary skill but also all of her knowledge and research to bear on this devastating problem. This is a book that helps us to understand the suicidal mind, to recognize and come to the aid of those at risk, and to comprehend the profound effects on those left behind.
Examines common risk factors of suicide, including mental illness, substance abuse, and bullying, and discusses health care resources to help prevent suicide and coping strategies for those struggling in the wake of a loved one's suicide.
In recent years, a great deal of interest has been focused on suicide in the elderly and in the young. However, in line with modem trends in psychology, sociology, psychiatry, anthropology, and other human health fields, interest has now shifted to suicide across the life span, from childhood through adulthood to old age. This book has been conceptualized within this developing tradition. There are various ways in which life's timelines can be conceptualized. Developmental theory, we believe, should be open-ended. This has widened-and will continue to widen-our understanding of many complicated human acts including suicide. Though suicide is in many ways the same across the entire life span, understanding the time-lines in the suicidal process is imperative. To do so, however, is, we believe, challenging. In this volume, we attempt to engage in the process of understanding suicide from a developmental perspective. To do this, we have been fortunate to obtain the cooperation of a highly competent group of contributors. One interesting footnote to our list of authorities is that they represent suicidologists from across the life span-a few who are at the beginning of their careers, a large number in their middle years, and a few who are in the Indian summer of their professional lives.
Suicide has been a taboo topic in Western culture. The mere mention of suicide sparks reactive responses that include medical, moral, spiritual, and religious debates. As a result, authors Pitchford and Krippner open an important discussion here, offering an honest and non-judgmental examination of the many aspects involved in the nature of suicide, explaining that above all, people need to learn how to support those struggling with suicidal thoughts, or to intercept their own suicidal thinking. Special consideration is given to military suicides. American soldier suicides exceed one per day and continue to rise in all military branches, while veteran suicide rates are even higher, averaging 17 per day. Communities, families, veterans, and service members are in need of tools and insights for coping with, navigating, and exposing the suicidal attitudes affecting many current and former members of the military.
By integrating sociological, psychological, and biological perspectives on the etiology of suicide, this book provides a concise overview of what is known about its assessment, prevention, and treatment. Its broad perspective makes it relevant to general readers and researchers in biology, psychology, sociology, psychiatry, politics and policy.
