Suicidal

With recent studies using genetic, epigenetic, and other molecular and neurochemical approaches, a new era has begun in understanding pathophysiology of suicide. Emerging evidence suggests that neurobiological factors are not only critical in providing potential risk factors but also provide a promising approach to develop more effective treatment and prevention strategies. The Neurobiological Basis of Suicide discusses the most recent findings in suicide neurobiology. Psychological, psychosocial, and cultural factors are important in determining the risk factors for suicide; however, they offer weak prediction and can be of little clinical use. Interestingly, cognitive characteristics are different among depressed suicidal and depressed nonsuicidal subjects, and could be involved in the development of suicidal behavior. The characterization of the neurobiological basis of suicide is in delineating the risk factors associated with suicide. The Neurobiological Basis of Suicide focuses on how and why these neurobiological factors are crucial in the pathogenic mechanisms of suicidal behavior and how these findings can be transformed into potential therapeutic applications.

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.

Helping the Suicidal Person provides a highly practical toolbox for mental health professionals. The book first covers the need for professionals to examine their own personal experiences and fears around suicide, moves into essential areas of risk assessment, safety planning, and treatment planning, and then provides a rich assortment of tips for reducing the person’s suicidal danger and rebuilding the wish to live. The techniques described in the book can be interspersed into any type of therapy, no matter what the professional’s theoretical orientation is and no matter whether it’s the client’s first, tenth, or one-hundredth session. Clinicians don’t need to read this book in any particular order, or even read all of it. Open the book to any page, and find a useful tip or technique that can be applied immediately.

Drawing on extensive clinical and epidemiological evidence, as well as personal experience, Thomas Joiner provides the most coherent and persuasive explanation ever given of why and how people overcome life's strongest instinct, self-preservation. He tests his theory against diverse 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 past 25 years have seen a major paradigm shift in the field of violence prevention, from the assumption that violence is inevitable to the recognition that violence is preventable. Part of this shift has occurred in thinking about why violence occurs, and where intervention points might lie. In exploring the occurrence of violence, researchers have recognized the tendency for violent acts to cluster, to spread from place to place, and to mutate from one type to another. Furthermore, violent acts are often preceded or followed by other violent acts. In the field of public health, such a process has also been seen in the infectious disease model, in which an agent or vector initiates a specific biological pathway leading to symptoms of disease and infectivity. The agent transmits from individual to individual, and levels of the disease in the population above the baseline constitute an epidemic. Although violence does not have a readily observable biological agent as an initiator, it can follow similar epidemiological pathways. On April 30-May 1, 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Global Violence Prevention convened a workshop to explore the contagious nature of violence. Part of the Forum's mandate is to engage in multisectoral, multidirectional dialogue that explores crosscutting, evidence-based approaches to violence prevention, and the Forum has convened four workshops to this point exploring various elements of violence prevention. The workshops are designed to examine such approaches from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels of society. In particular, the workshop on the contagion of violence focused on exploring the epidemiology of the contagion, describing possible processes and mechanisms by which violence is transmitted, examining how contextual factors mitigate or exacerbate the issue. Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary covers the major topics that arose during the 2-day workshop. It is organized by important elements of the infectious disease model so as to present the contagion of violence in a larger context and in a more compelling and comprehensive way.

The aim of the American Psychiatric Association Practice Guideline series is to improve patient care. Guidelines provide a comprehensive synthesis of all available information relevant to the clinical topic. Practice guidelines can be vehicles for educating psychiatrists, other medical and mental health professionals, and the general public about appropriate and inappropriate treatments. The series also will identify those areas in which critical information is lacking and in which research could be expected to improve clinical decisions. The Practice Guidelines are also designed to help those charged with overseeing the utilization and reimbursement of psychiatric services to develop more scientifically based and clinically sensitive criteria.

This book has been replaced by Managing Suicidal Risk, Third Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-5269-6.

Argues that a range of behaviors such as murder-suicide, terrorism, and mass shootings are better understood as motivated by suicidal impulses than by homicidal ones Mass shooters often display behaviors that strongly mirror the warning signs for suicide: lives led in isolation, intense personal suffering, disaffection, and struggle. Letters detailing why they did what they did paint pictures of intense misery and loneliness. As this book makes clear, private despair sometimes leads to social violence. In this groundbreaking work, Thomas Joiner offers a unified theory of suicide, making the case that many acts that appear homicidal are best understood primarily as suicidal. We must recognize that there are several forms of suicidal violence, some of which masquerade as other types of acts, including terrorism and murder. These include suicide-by-cop, suicide terrorism, murder-suicide, and running amok. Though there are obvious differences among these acts, Joiner argues that framing them as stemming from a common ideology of suicide is a crucial step in preventing these atrocities. By recognizing the desire to die—not to kill—as being at the heart of many of the acts of those who choose to kill their partner, shoot up their school, or terrorize their community, we can offer more effective measures of intervention. At a time when our nation is scrambling for solutions in the fight to end gun violence, this book presents a crucial component in the detection and treatment of unwell individuals.