Integrating research from multiple disciplines, this text provides a comprehensive perspective on suicide and examines what works in prevention and intervention. The author is a pioneering researcher and clinician who addresses the classification, prevalence, and assessment of suicide and self-destructive behaviors and explores risk factors at multiple levels, from demographic variables, personality traits, psychiatric diagnoses, and neurobiological factors to the social and cultural context. Student-friendly features include text boxes that dive deeply into specific issues, instructive figures and tables, thought-provoking clinical cases, and engaging examples from literature and popular culture. The text reviews medical and psychosocial treatment and prevention approaches, discusses ways to help those bereaved by suicide, and considers issues of professional liability.
 

Ronald W. Maris, PhD, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Family Medicine, and Sociology at the University of South Carolina (USC), where he directed the Center for the Study of Suicide for 15 years. He is a forensic suicidologist who offers investigation, consultation, and testimony on a variety of civil and criminal cases. Dr. Maris has written or edited 22 books and about 100 articles. He is past president of the American Association of Suicidology and a past editor of the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. The recipient of four teaching awards from USC, Dr. Maris was certified in forensic suicidology by the American Association of Suicidology and earned Fellow status in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. He has been invited to address the U.S. Congress on veteran suicides; was a consultant on the Columbia University/Food and Drug Administration project to analyze data on the relationship of suicidality and antidepressant treatment in children and adolescents, leading to black-box warnings; and has served as consultant and reviewer for grant applications to the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the National Academy of Sciences.
 

1. Introduction to Suicidology
2. The Theoretical Construction of Suicidology
II. Data, Research, Assessment
3. Grounding Suicidology in Empirical Evidence
4. Measurement: Risk Factors and Risk Assessment
III. Sociodemographic Issues
5. Age, Lifespan, and Suicidal Careers
6. A Phallocentric Focus: Sex, Gender, and Marital Status
7. Social versus Individual Facts: Social Relations, Work, and the Economy
8. International Variation in Suicide
9. Who Makes Suicide Attempts, How, and What Do Suicide Notes Say about Them?
IV. Major Mental Disorders, Biology, Neurobiology
10. The Most Important Suicide Risk Factor: Mental Disorder
11. Major Depression: Undiagnosed and Untreated
12. Bipolar Disorder: A Suicidogenic Cycle of Despair
13. Schizophrenia: Bizarre and Psychotic Suicides
14. Personality Disorders: Borderline, Antisocial, and Obsessive–Compulsive Personalities
15. The Second Most Important Suicide Risk Factor: Alcoholism and Other Substance Abuse
16. Suicidal Biogenics of the Brain: Biology, Genetics, and Neurobiology
V. Religion, Culture, History, Ethics
17. God, the Afterlife, Religion, and Culture
18. How Did Suicide Evolve?: Suicide in History and Art
19. Is Suicide Ever the Right Thing to Do?: Ethical Issues, Euthanasia, and Rational Suicide
VI. Special Topics
20. Suicide in the Military: War, Aggression, and PTSD
21. Murder–Suicide: Why Take Someone with You?
22. Jail and Prison Suicides: Confinement, Rage, and Target Reduction
VII. Treatment and Prevention
23. What Are We Going to Do about Suicide?: Treatment and Intervention I. Pharmacology
24. What Are We Going to do about Suicide?: Treatment and Intervention II. Psychotherapy
25. Prevention: Can Suicides Be Stopped or Reduced?
26. Postvention and Survivors: Death May Solve the Suicide’s Problems, but What about Those Left Behind?
27. Forensic Suicidology: A Tort Is the Oldest Antidepressant
VIII. Summary and Conclusions
28. What Have We Learned?
Epilogue
References