Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology

by Ronald W. Maris, Alan L. Berman, Morton M. Silverman

This book has been replaced by A Comprehensive Biopsychosocial Perspective , ISBN 978-1-4625-3698-6.

Genres: Psychology

650 pages, Hardcover

First published August 10, 2000

Reviews

[stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

i'm still reading this, picking chapters apart, but it's the first book to really look at suicide like something that could be taught in grad school. which is so so desperately needed - my abnormal professor told us if we were ever practicing clinicians, we shouldn't want suicidal patients because they usually died and were depressing and didn't see any hope.

i of course raised my hand and said, isn't our job as clinicians to help people that are in need? and aren't truly suicidal people in desperate need of help? he kind of ignored me.

there is this stigma related to suicide and the people who study it, and the emergence of a textbook means that it's finally starting to be taken seriously by the "establishment". like any textbook, it's more of an over-view - but it refers you to other texts, should you want to go in deeper detail about specific points. it also manages to do what durkheim tried to do, in making suicidolgy an actual science - just one with unconventional methods of methodology.

fairly ingenius.

[Mehwish · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has taken me a good 4 years to read this magnanimous and excellent resource on the study of suicide. The reading had occurred in infrequent bouts because of the subject matter. An on-page day on a fine evening would require several off days/weeks of absorbing the information. Being a textbook, it had an excellent amount of recommendations which obviously derailed me quite a number of times.
The book is divided into 5 major parts covering every aspect of suicidology:
1) Foundations of suicidology - theories, the foundation and history of suicidology
2) Sociodemographic and epidemiological issues
3) Medical and psychiatric issues
4) Indirect self-destruction, ethics, philosophy and the law
5) Treatment and prevention - postvention

A must-have, must-read resource for anyone interested in the study of suicide.

[Robert Bogue]

In principle, I must disagree with any book that calls itself comprehensive. It's impossible to contain everything about a topic in one tome – in part because there's always new discoveries, and in part because it's hard to define the edges of a particular area of knowledge. Despite my semantic objections, Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology does provide a rather impressive array of topics related to suicide.

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[Leabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough investigation of the literature to date of publication plus some history and anecdote around the topic. Helpful from a professional perspective.