Description
A massive compendium of current research and thought to help clinicians identify patients who may be at risk for suicide and take appropriate steps to reduce the risk. Explains methods for determining the risk level for suicidal or at-risk patients, recommends a suicide assessment protocol that can fold easily into clinical practice, and provides guidelines for intervening when people risk harming themselves. Ranges through such populations as adolescents; the physically ill; and those with major mental illness, alcoholism, and borderline personality disorder. Also considers somatic treatment, highlighting new findings about lithium. One chapter is an intimate account by a professional who once attempted suicide; another looks at assisted suicide and euthanasia. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
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This vital resource--edited by Harvard Medical School's DouglasJacobs, a nationally recognized expert on suicide anddepression--is the definitive guide for helping mental healthprofessionals determine the risk for suicide and appropriateinterventions for suicidal or at-risk patients. Created primarilyfor mental health clinicians (with several chapters directed towardprimary care physicians), the book is a hands-on guide for thosewho are often the first line of defense for assessing if a patientor client is suicidal. Comprehensive in scope, the book offers a wealth of informationabout such useful topics as inpatient and outpatient issues,psychopharmacology, and advice about working with specialpopulations. Most importantly, the book's contributors detaileffective techniques for intervention and offer a model of suicideassessment that focuses on predisposing conditions, potentiatingconditions, and specific suicide inquiries. As a special feature,the book also includes a helpful section on contracts--agreementsmade with the patient not to harm themselves--and useful factsabout the subsequent liability issues. In addition, there is acompelling analysis of the controversial issues surroundingassisted suicide as well as an honest personal account ofsuicidality from a professional who has experienced it for herself.
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