Suicide and Depression
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An Unquiet Mind |
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Author: Vintage
Publisher: 0679763309
ISBN: 0385485514
Desciption: Described as a "foremost authority on manic-depressive illness," the author of this book both studies and lives with this disorder. Redfield Jamison gives the reader an insight into what it is like to live with bipolar affective disorder. You quickly grow to respect and admire her, and to see her as a sort of role model. Being a clinician herself, and having written textbooks on the subject, she also includes clinical details-subtly, so that you learn without realising it.
She describes her hypomanic episodes as some of her most exhilarating times, so that the reader actually envies this unique experience: what normal mind can fly past Saturn and its moons? "The intensity, glory, and absolute assuredness of my mind's flight made it very difficult for me to believe, once I was better, that the illness was one I should willingly give up." It is in this description that you can begin to understand what makes her and others so resistant to taking the prescribed medications, with their well known side effects, obediently.
The account is balanced with the true depths of depression that inevitably follow the mania. She presents a frightening account of herself in the midst of psychosis, of her pervasive suicidal thoughts, and of her eventual suicide attempt. You also see that somehow she has, throughout it all, managed to become a highly effective clinician and researcher, and you feel that if this woman can achieve things in the grip of such an illness, surely you can take your finals despite a mild attack of boredom.
Finally, Redfield Jamison acknowledges the fear of being exposed as a psychiatric patient within the medical profession. Her message to students and doctors with mental illness and drug or alcohol habits is that they should not be afraid of seeking help. While it is never easy to confide in a colleague and there will, unfortunately, be those who react negatively, many offer unexpected understanding, empathy, and invaluable support. She outlines the advantages of involving your colleagues, so that they may intervene if your clinical judgment suffers, to protect both you and your patients. As Redfield Jamison states herself, "The real dangers [are] those clinicians... who-because of the stigma or fear of suspension of their privileges or expulsion from medical school... are hesitant to seek out psychiatric treatment. Left untreated, or unsupervised, many become ill, endangering not only their own lives, but those of others."
 
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Burn Journals |
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Authors: Brent Runyon
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 1400096421
Description: BRENT RUNYON WAS 14 years old when he set himself on fire. This is a true story. In The Burn Journals, Runyon describes that devastating suicide attempt and his recovery over the following year. He takes us into the Burn Unit in a children’s hospital and through painful burn care and skin-grafting procedures. Then to a rehabilitation hospital, for intensive physical, occupational, and psychological therapy. And then finally back home, to the frightening prospect of entering high school. But more importantly, Runyon takes us into his own mind. He shares his thoughts and hopes and fears with such unflinching honesty that we understand—with a terrible clarity—what it means to want to kill yourself and how it feels to struggle back toward normality. Intense, exposed, insightful, The Burn Journals is a deeply personal story with universal reach. It is impossible to look away. Impossible to remain unmoved.
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No Time to Say Goodbye |
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Author: Carla Fine
Publisher: Main Street Books
ISBN: 0385485514
Desciption: Suicide
would appear to be the last taboo. Even incest is now discussed freely
in popular media, but the suicide of a loved one is still an act most
people are unable to talk about--or even admit to their closest family
or friends. This is just one of the many painful and paralyzing truths
author Carla Fine discovered when her husband, a successful young
physician, took his own life in December 1989. And being unable to
speak openly and honestly about the cause of her pain made it all the
more difficult for her to survive.
With No Time to Say Goodbye,
she brings suicide survival from the darkness into light, speaking
frankly about the overwhelming feelings of confusion, guilt, shame,
anger, and loneliness that are shared by all survivors. Fine draws on
her own experience and on conversations with many other survivors--as
well as on the knowledge of counselors and mental health professionals.
She offers a strong helping hand and invaluable guidance to the vast
numbers of family and friends who are left behind by the more than
thirty thousand people who commit suicide each year, struggling to make
sense of an act that seems to them senseless, and to pick up the pieces
of their own shattered lives. And, perhaps most important, for the
first time in any book, she allows survivors to see that they are not
alone in their feelings of grief and despair.
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The Suicide Intervention Handbook |
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 Description: The 152-page, extensively revised, tenth edition of the Suicide Intervention Handbook
is a basic primer on all aspects of suicide prevention with an emphasis
on suicide intervention. Among the authors are the designers of the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST)—the
most widely used training vehicle on suicide intervention in the world.
Written in an easy-to-read, non-technical style, the content is
state-of-the-art on intervening to help people at risk of suicide. It
is for family, friends, police officers, counsellors, teachers,
physicians, nurses, mental health workers—anyone who wishes to make a
difference. It should be on the shelf of every helper and in the homes
of everyone in the community. The Handbook is ideal for a wide range of
education opportunities—from general courses and seminars on helping
practices to focused content on suicide intervention in technical
training forums for mental health professionals.
The
Handbook explores caregiver attitudes, provides tools for recognizing
and estimating risk, outlines the steps and processes involved in doing
an intervention and provides 25 pages of intervention illustrations.
This content is bordered by an opening and closing chapter which places
intervention into the entire suicide prevention picture. The last
chapter provides many options for getting involved with suicide
prevention. Several chapters are followed by extensive supplemental
materials. Each chapter concludes with an intriguing true and/or false
quiz.
This
handbook is primarily an introduction to suicide intervention. While we
believe you will find the handbook helpful, it alone will not prepare
you to be a suicide intervention caregiver, regardless of prior
training. As a simple way of explaining that more is involved, this
handbook is also part of the participant materials for the two-day, Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). In ASIST,
this handbook primarily serves as a refresher for what is learned first
hand. If you want to feel ready, willing and able to be a suicide
intervention caregiver, plan to attend an ASIST or similar workshop.
Website: http://www.livingworks.net
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