Life Span Perspectives of Suicide: Time-Lines in the Suicide Process

by A.A. Leenaars

Overview

In recent years, a great deal of interest has been focused on suicide in the elderly and in the young. However, in line with modem trends in psychology, sociology, psychiatry, anthropology, and other human health fields, interest has now shifted to suicide across the life span, from childhood through adulthood to old age. This book has been conceptualized within this developing tradition. There are various ways in which life's timelines can be conceptualized. Developmental theory, we believe, should be open-ended. This has widened-and will continue to widen-our understanding of many complicated human acts including suicide. Though suicide is in many ways the same across the entire life span, understanding the time-lines in the suicidal process is imperative. To do so, however, is, we believe, challenging. In this volume, we attempt to engage in the process of understanding suicide from a developmental perspective. To do this, we have been fortunate to obtain the cooperation of a highly competent group of contributors. One interesting footnote to our list of authorities is that they represent suicidologists from across the life span-a few who are at the beginning of their careers, a large number in their middle years, and a few who are in the Indian summer of their professional lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781489907264
Publisher:	Springer US
Publication date:	05/29/2013
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1991
Pages:	326
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

I. Introduction.- 1. The End of Development.- 2. A Brief Introduction to the Stages of Development.- 3. The Developmental Perspective of Suicide.- 4. The Commonalities of Suicide across the Life Span.- II. Epidemiology.- 5. Epidemiology of Suicide in the United States.- 6. Suicide across the Life Span: A Look at International Trends.- 7. Suicide at Symbolic Ages: Death on Stocktaking Occasions.- III. Suicide by Time-Lines.- 8. Suicide in the School-Age Child and Adolescent.- 9. Child and Adolescent Suicide: From the Nomothetic to the Idiographic.- 10. Suicide in the Young Adult.- 11. Suicide in Middle Adulthood.- 12. Suicide and the Elderly.- IV. Correlates of Suicide.- 13. Biological Correlates of Suicide across the Life Span.- 14. Social Correlates of Suicide by Age: Media Impacts.- 15. Suicide in Different Ages from a Cross-Cultural Perspective.- V. Survivor Issues.- 16. Child and Adolescent Survivors of Suicide.- 17. Adult Survivors after Suicide: Research Problems and Needs.- VI. Preventing Suicide.- 18. Developmental Perspective on Prevention and Treatment of Suicidal Youth.- 19. The Prevention of Suicide in Adults.- VII. Concluding Remarks.- 20. A Life Span Perspective of Suicide.

Editorial Reviews

An examination of suicide from a developmental perspective, this collection of articles treats the phenomenon of suicide across the entire life span, not just in the young or elderly, as manifested in recent tendencies, and at the same time recognizes distinctive time- lines in the suicidal process. Topics include epidemiology, correlates of suicide, survivor issues, and prevention. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews