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.

Suicide is a complex problem which is linked to socioeconomic problems as well as mental stress and illness. Healthcare professionals now know that the essential component of the suicidal person’s state of crisis is of a psychological and emotional nature. How to Help the Suicidal Person to Choose Life is a detailed guide to suicide prevention. The book recommends ethic of care and empathy as a tool for suicide intervention. Readers will learn about approaches that focus on suicide prevention that address the despairing emotional mind set of the suicidal person. Key features: • Features easy to understand learning guides for students • Emphasizes on suicide intervention strategies rather than identification of risk factors • highlights information from narrative case studies and psychological autopsies • includes practice and simulation exercises designed to enhance therapeutic modalities such as empathy, compassion, unconditional positive regard, connection, therapeutic alliance, the narrative action theoretical approach and mindful listening • Contains guidelines prescribed by the Aeschi working group for clinicians • Provides a list of bibliographic references and an appendix for other resources of information useful for suicide prevention This book is recommended for students and practicing professionals (in medicine, psychiatry, nursing, psychiatric nursing, psychology, counselling, teaching, social work, the military, police, paramedics etc.), and other first responders, volunteers or outreach workers who are confronted with situations where they have to assist people who are known or suspected of being suicidal.

NOW WITH A NEW CHAPTER AND AN UPDATED RESOURCES SECTION Suicide has touched the lives of nearly half of all Americans, yet it is rarely talked about openly. In her highly acclaimed book, Susan Blauner—a survivor of multiple suicide attempts—offers guidance and hope for those contemplating ending their lives and for their loved ones. “Each word written with thoughtful intent; each story told with the deepest of honesty and humility, and in doing so Blauner puts forward a life-saving book."—Daniel J. Reidenberg, PsyD, Executive Director, Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (www.save.org) “I continued to romanticize my death by suicide: who would find me; what I’d look like. I spent hundreds of hours planning my funeral, imagining the remorse of my family and friends. I wrote good-bye letters, composed wills, and disrupted the lives of everyone close to me. Then reality hit.”—Susan Rose Blauner The statistics on suicide are staggering. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 800,000 people die by suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds, and for each completed suicide there may be twenty or more attempts. In How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me, Susan Blauner is the perfect emissary for a message of hope and a program of action for these millions of people. A survivor of multiple suicide attempts, she explains the complex feelings and fantasies that surround suicidal thoughts. In a direct, nonjudgmental, and loving voice, she offers affirmations and suggestions for those experiencing life-ending thoughts, and for their friends and family. With an introduction by Bernie Siegel, M.D., this important, timely book has now been updated with a revised resources section, and a new chapter on the author’s experiences since the book’s initial publication.

This book describes a new method -- an actual system -- of conducting suicide risk assessments that are clinically sound, professionally responsible, and legally defensible. This is the first attempt to simplify and organize the risk assessment process into a logical, structured format, with practical guidelines and specific step-by-step instruction that can be followed from the beginning of the assessment to the end.

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.

Helping People Overcome Suicidal Thoughts, Urges and Behaviour draws together practical and effective approaches to help individuals at risk of suicide. The book provides a framework and outlines skills for anyone working with adults who present with suicidal thoughts or intent. Part 1 introduces a basic understanding of our knowledge about suicide and UK policy; Part 2 outlines the research into the treatment of suicidality and the general principles for working in the safest possible way. Part 3 outlines ten key psychological skills in the context of evidence-based best practice. The book also discusses the role of health and social care professionals in the prevention of suicide in the context of Covid-19. The book will be a valuable addition to the resources of professionals including psychotherapists, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, prison and probation officers, drug and alcohol workers, general practitioners and support staff in any health or social care context.

Working with Suicidal Individuals provides a comprehensive guide to understanding suicide, the assessment of risk, and the treatment and management of suicidal individuals. It covers the theory behind suicidal behaviour, using Transactional Analysis to explore the personality types of suicidal individuals and to understand their motivations.