v 12th Annual Outreach Resource of the Year What is the church's role in suicide prevention? While we tend to view the work of suicide prevention as the task of professional therapists and doctors, the church can also play a vital role. Studies show that religious faith is an important factor reducing the risk of suicide. Yet many pastors, chaplains and pastoral counselors feel overwhelmed and unprepared to prevent suicides. In this practical handbook, psychologist Karen Mason equips ministry professionals to work with suicidal individuals. Integrating theology and psychology, she shows how pastoral caregivers can be agents of hope, teaching the significance of life, monitoring those at risk and intervening when they need help. Because church leaders are often present in people's lives in seasons of trouble and times of crisis, they can provide comfort in the midst of suffering and offer guidance for the future. When our church members struggle in the darkness, the darkness need not overcome them. Discover how you and your church can be proactive in caring for those at risk of self-harm.

New edition of an acclaimed manual which uses the solution focused approach to take an empathetic and validating approach to working with individuals considering suicide. Offers invaluable guidance for suicide prevention by showing “what works” in treating those struggling with suicidal thoughts Provides straightforward ways to deal frankly with the subject of suicide, along with a range of tools and techniques that are helpful to clients Includes actual dialogue between practitioners and clients to allow readers to gain a better understanding of how to work with suicidal clients Compares and contrasts a ground-breaking approach to suicide prevention with more traditional approaches to risk assessment and management Features numerous updates and revisions along with brand new sections dealing with the international landscape, blaming the suicided person, Dr Alys Cole-King’s ‘Connecting with People’, and telephone work with the suicidal, Human Givens Therapy, and zero suicide

This book offers essential information about assessing, managing, and providing mental health treatment for suicidal adult outpatients. Suicide is a heartbreaking phenomenon that is the result of innumerable factors embedded in the personal histories and experiences of each patient. Yet despite this complexity, research has uncovered commonalities that can enable mental health practitioners to successfully treat suicidal patients. In this book, author Sam Knapp guides readers through the full process of treating suicidal patients, from screening to relapse prevention, using effective, research-informed interventions. He explains suicidal behavior through ideation-to-action theories of suicide, and argues for the application of principle-based ethics when making treatment decisions. He emphasizes the importance of a strong therapeutic relationship, and respecting patient autonomy as much as possible in such circumstances. Throughout, Suicide Prevention makes current research on suicide accessible and useful to practicing mental health providers, connecting it with practical approaches and case examples informed by the author's extensive clinical experience.

The International Handbook of Suicide Prevention, 2nd Edition, presents a series of readings that consider the individual and societal factors that lead to suicide, it addresses ways these factors may be mitigated, and presents the most up-to-date evidence for effective suicide prevention approaches. An updated reference that shows why effective suicide prevention can only be achieved by understanding the many reasons why people choose to end their lives Gathers together contributions from more than 100 of the world’s leading authorities on suicidal behavior—many of them new to this edition Considers suicide from epidemiological, psychological, clinical, sociological, and neurobiological perspectives, providing a holistic understanding of the subject Describes the most up-to-date, evidence-based research and practice from across the globe, and explores its implications across countries, cultures, and the lifespan

Every year, about 30,000 people die by suicide in the U.S., and some 650,000 receive emergency treatment after a suicide attempt. Often, those most at risk are the least able to access professional help. Reducing Suicide provides a blueprint for addressing this tragic and costly problem: how we can build an appropriate infrastructure, conduct needed research, and improve our ability to recognize suicide risk and effectively intervene. Rich in data, the book also strikes an intensely personal chord, featuring compelling quotes about people's experience with suicide. The book explores the factors that raise a person's risk of suicide: psychological and biological factors including substance abuse, the link between childhood trauma and later suicide, and the impact of family life, economic status, religion, and other social and cultural conditions. The authors review the effectiveness of existing interventions, including mental health practitioners' ability to assess suicide risk among patients. They present lessons learned from the Air Force suicide prevention program and other prevention initiatives. And they identify barriers to effective research and treatment. This new volume will be of special interest to policy makers, administrators, researchers, practitioners, and journalists working in the field of mental health.

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.