Suicide Books

The Holmes' have regularly produced a series of high quality books on serial murder, sex crimes and other criminal justice topics. This latest book adds to their repetoire with an interesting and easy to read book on suicide.

I would say that this book focuses more on the outcome side of suicide...meaning the sociological or investigative side of suicide. The authors do cover material on the psychology of suicide, but I think that the real insights here are investigative. Indeed, one of the highlights of the book are the real suicide notes that are presented throughout the book which offer a lot of insight into the final thoughts of some of the individuals who have committed suicide.

This text would make an excellent text for future investigators of death scenes. Also this would make a good supplemental text to an abnormal psyche course (where I may try it myself next semester). Finally this is a good read for anyone interested in the topic. Highly recommended.

Many blessings to you for creating an empowering and positive message for so many. There is such a sense of separation and disconnection that is the common thread for suicide...which is why your CD can make a powerful compassionate difference. Thank you, Rebecca, for having a loving intention to share your passion to care and connect with others in this way.

As someone who works in the healing arts, I will be sure to share this valuable resource with others who are looking for a way to help heal and renew the spirit of anyone touched by suicide.

Infinite Blessings of Gratitude,

Jennifer Weggeman, M.A.
Author | Life Transformation Expert | Spiritual Entrepreneur
www.a-month-of-sundays.com

I think quite a lot of people will be able to relate to this story in one way or another.
It is the story of three friends and a summer of great change. Jo and Harold (friends since birth), meet the new girl on the block, Beth. She is unlike anyone they have ever met and is the catalyst for a summer that will shape the rest of Jo's and Harolds's lives.
Extremely well paced, this story builds towards an ending that is both shocking and touching.
Highly recommended!

I loved this book! The author is a clinical psychologist dealing with a troubled adolescent girl. The main character is intelligent and gifted, but struggling with her own sanity, emotions, basic trust issues, sexuality, and eating disorders. At times she is suicidal, violent to others, paranoid and out of control. At other times, she shows childlike innocence and vulnerability. Dr. Anderson patiently re-establishes basic trust with her, and helps her disturbed patient find herself again. The story is enlightening and inspiring. In this book, you will find troubled teenagers that you have known, or may be dealing with now. You may even recognize yourself at times. It is a true story, and is therefore unpredictable, as true life often is. You will have trouble putting it down, as you wait to see how the story unfolds. By the end, you will understand the enigmatic title. The tale is contemporary, the characters well developed, and the lessons learned are timeless, being just as relevent now as when the story was written. This book is a must for any parent, any counselor, psychologist, teacher, doctor, youth leader, neighbor, friend or relative of a troubled adolescent. I'm anxiously waiting for Luleen Anderson's NEW BOOK to be published soon, titled "FILL ME UP TO EMPTY".

I read this book back when it first came out many years ago. It has such an awesome message. God cares about His children. James Robison was on the brink of suicide when God sent a man across his path to help him. In James Robison's case he was an angry preacher, and then the pressures got too much for him, he was in burn out. But then he met a carpet cleaner, that when he met James Robison he told him he was about the most demonized person he had ever met. This carpet cleaner told James that he could help him, and told him to call him when he wanted help. James thought the man was nuts. But then he did call him, and he sat in a chair as the man prayed over him, and James did not feel a thing, and left saying how embarassed he was for the man. But 3 days later the proof came out as he awoke "Scriptures from the Bible began flowing from his mouth, and he was finally able to be free". I will never forget this magnificent testimony and the changes that came over James Robison, he is much more compassionate, and loving to all, and he has the heart of Jesus. He is a good man.
I gave this book a way to minister to someone who needed it. Now I am glad it is available again. Everyone should have this book in their Faith Library, because God does still heal today, and in many others ways besides through Doctors.

An excellent memoir! Informative and personal. Gives an insightful look into teen suicide and the truth about those who are suicidal. I highly reoccmend this to those suffering from depression, parents of depressed children/teens and it's a must read for therapists and psychiatrists.

As chief of a busy psychiatric service in a managed care company, I found a great deal of solace, support and practical information in Dr Ellison's timely and useful collection of essays. Neither Dr Ellison nor any of his contributors take the easy way out of 'bashing' managed care organizations. Rather, they seem to understand the socioeconomic rationale for these organizations, take them as a given and objectively delineate their strengths and weaknesses. They then set about the really important task of showing the way for the practicing clinician to cope with them. The book is empowering on many levels offering strategies for providing the most effective care, warnings about what to anticipate in planning treatment for a patient covered under managed care, and techniques for objecting effectively when real clinical concerns cannot be satisfactorily dealt with in an existing system of care. Never did I detect a victimized stance with regard to clinician or patient.
The book offers legal perspectives, special sections on the care of the elderly and the adolescent suicidal patient, and helpful background about the evolution of managed care systems. One of the best chapters in the book, written by Dr Steve Stelovich, discusses the aftermath of suicide in terms of risk prevention, support of providers, and compassionate treatment of the survivors.
Dr Ellison has done a great service to clinicians in organizing this helpful compendium of expertise about a subject that needs constant revisiting. I am grateful for his doing so and will find many applications for his book in the life of my clinic.

In the book The TV Guidance Counselor A teenage boy finds himself through many trials and tribualtions. After he plummets himself into the river and winds up in a mental hospital he learns to cope with his anger. Michael Madden learns that it is okay to hurt, it is okay to feel pain that you can cry sometimes and still be human. By the end of this truly amazing down to earth book He finnally meets himself and he thinks that meeting yourself can be a wonderful thing.

This story is a sad one about a girl named Claire who's friend killed herself. Claire's friend Hannah was really a hero. Like a 7-11 of friends, open 24 hours a day. Catering to everyone's need. Her mother killed herself and she never had a love life. Claire's life falls apart; her mother becomes pregnant with someone she is not married with. She then falls in love with her friends boyfriend brining guilt. It was so touching.

"This is a book about ideas," writes the author John Mitchell. "It was born, however, out of deep emotion." "Understanding Assisted Suicide" recounts the author's intellectual journey following the deaths of his parents. His father, who died first, asked his children for help in ending his struggle against advanced pancreatic cancer. His mother, succumbing to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, needed assistance as well. The author acknowledges that like most people facing these crises, he and his sister were not fully prepared for the wrenching decisions that had to be made. But in the years that followed, Mitchell set out to understand the complex moral, philosophical, religious and legal issues surrounding assisted suicide. This excellent book is a roadmap to that journey.
Does our culture subscribe to the notion of the absolute sanctity of life? Does Western religion plainly forbid suicide, and thus assisted suicide? If you accept the idea that a particular suicide might be justified, would condoning it nonetheless be harmful to society? Would permitting physician-assisted suicide establish a "slippery slope" that would end in the involuntary deaths of our most vulnerable? What about the principal of "autonomy" - shouldn't we have the right to make the fundamental choices about our lives? Or is the decision to take one's own life evidence itself that one who reaches that conclusion is neither rational nor competent to do so?
The author, who is a Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law, also looks at the legal issues surrounding assisted suicide. Does every U.S. citizen have a constitutional right to make this decision? Is it a fundamental right implicit in our right to liberty? Or is it covered by the equal protection clause of the Constitution, on the grounds that to prohibit assisted suicide in one case (a son helping to administer a lethal injection) and yet to allow it in others (discontinuing life support or using clearly dangerous levels of morphine) is a dubious and potentially arbitrary distinction. What happens when we decriminalize assisted suicide, as the Netherlands and the State of Oregon have sought to do?
These and other arguments for and against the rights of individuals to take their lives and to ask (and get) assistance from others are closely examined by Mitchell and tested against both the rigor of his intellectual analysis and the touchstone of his own personal experience. With its wide-ranging review of the focal issues of the assisted suicide debate and extensive notes on sources, this well-written book will be a valuable resource for professionals and scholars in a wide variety of disciplines. Grounded in the author's own struggle to come to grips with a complex and emotionally charged passage in his life, it will challenge and engage the general reader as well.