Overview

This book is intended for anyone with either an interest in suicide or suicidal behaviour. It is not aimed solely at the professional psychotherapist but at a broad range of professionals who encounter suicidal people in their work. It is also intended for those of us who have been touched by suicide personally. The book approaches suicide from the point of view of the suicidal state of mind and is intended to help us understand more about this condition. In its essence suicide is examined as a largely unconscious aggressive act having its roots in a perceived or real experience of thwarted childhood needs. The wounds of the suicidal person are often long held and deep. The suicidal person is pursued by haunting losses and the suicidal act comes from deep disturbance created by this and from the idea of death as an acting out of some form of suicidal fantasy. The quasi delusional and split quality of the act is examined - namely that suicide is both an act for and against the self.

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9780367104153

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Reviews

This is the best book available for therapists on working with people who are contemplating suicide, or with those bereaved as a result of it. Suicide is explored from personal and societal angles in a manner that is honest, lucid, informative and deeply based in considerable clinical and training experience. The book is also an exceptionally frank testament to both the frighteningly insecure and the more reassuringly solid aspects of being human. I was moved, educated and challenged. -- (02/13/2017) Read this book. If it succeeds in making you feel less fearful and more curious about suicide, then it will have achieved its purpose. Clearly written and thought provoking, Antonia Murphy reminds us that suicide is not an illness, and through weaving together personal insight, professional experience, and a review of the writing on suicide, she gives us an accessible account of our current understanding of suicidal states of mind. -- (02/13/2017) We met Antonia having set up a charity following the tragic, unexpected, and devastating death of our 21-year-old son James. James was a student at Newcastle University and we recognised how important it was to support the valuable training that Counsellors and Psychotherapists in Primary Care (CPC) were offering to university staff. Through Antonia's own personal experience, her journey of working with the complex issue of suicide and subsequent wealth of knowledge gained, she has produced a book that will shed light onto this dark and difficult subject, and give the reader a much clearer understanding of it. -- (02/13/2017)

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Antonia Murphy

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