Phenomenology of Suicide: Unlocking The Suicidal Mind

Description

This book will help the reader to understand the suicidal mind from a phenomenological point of view, shedding light on the feelings of suicidal individuals and also those of clinicians. In accordance with the importance that the phenomenological approach attaches to subjectivity and sense of self as the starting points for knowledge, emphasis is placed on the need for the clinician to focus on the subjective experiences of the at-risk individual, to set aside prior assumptions, judgments, or interpretations, and to identify ways of bridging gaps in communication associated with negative emotions. The vital importance of empathy is stressed, drawing attention to the insights offered by neuroimaging studies and the role of mirror neurons in social cognition. It is widely acknowledged that when a clinician meets a person who wants to die by suicide, the clinician does not fully understand what is going on inside the mind of that individual. This book recognizes that any approach to suicide prevention must promote understanding of suicidal thoughts and feelings. The awareness that it fosters and the innovative perspectives that it presents will appeal to a wide readership.

Table of Contents

1. Historical Phenomenology: Understanding Experiences of Suicide and Suicidality Across Time
2. Introduction
3. Anthropology and Historical Phenomenology as Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Suicidolo
4. Historical Phenomenology
5. Benjamin Haydon
6. Reflections of a Committed Suicidologist
7. Exploring the Phenomenology of Suicide
8. The Influence of Past Centuries
9. Suicide: Symptom or Syndrome?
10. Psychological Autopsy Studies
11. Toward a Phenomenology of Suicide
12. Conclusions
13. Our Empathic Brain and Suicidal Individuals
14. A Phenomenological Approach to Suicidal Mental Life
15. Despair as One Side of Suicidal Mental Life
16. Jean Améry: Suicide as the ‘Path to Freedom’
17. The Other Side of Suicidal Mental Life: Suicide as Relief, Catharsis or Remedy
18. The Two Sides of Suicidal Mental Life
19. Early-Life Adversity and Suicide Risk: The Role of Epigenetics
20. Suicide and Its Association with Early-Life Adversity
21. The Genome and Genomic Plasticity
22. Epigenetic Mechanisms
23. Early-Life Adversity and the Stress Response System
24. Early-Life Adversity and the Serotonin System
25. Genome-Wide Epigenetic Investigations
26. Terror and Horror: Feelings, Intersubjectivity and ‘Understanding at the Edges’ in an I
27. Understanding More Fully
28. Understanding Others and Otherness
29. Communicating Our Depths
30. Understanding at the Edges
31. Terror
32. Horror
33. Reflections
34. Empathy and Empathic Disconnection in Difficult and Uneasy Situations: Facing the Suicidal In
35. The Role of Empathy in the Patient-Clinician Relationship
36. An Uneasy Situation: The Suicidal Individual
37. Empathy
38. Definition of Empathy
39. Theory of Mind
40. Mirror System and Embodied Simulation
41. The Role of the Insula
42. Cold Motor Control System and Hot Motor Control System
43. Triggers of the Empathic Response
44. The Self/Other Distinction
45. The Role of the Amygdala
46. Modulation of Empathic Responses
47. Empathic Disconnection
48. The Suicidal Individual
49. Countertransference Hate
50. Moral Judgment
51. Reactive Physical Discomfort
52. Labelling
53. Empathic Disconnection and Patient-Clinician Relationship
54. Empathic Moment
55. Vitality Forms as a Parameter of the Emotional State
56. Practical Applications
57. Compassion
58. Observation
59. Empathic Moment and Empathic Disconnection: Practical Techniques
60. First Step, Precondition: Previous Mental Presence
61. Second Step, Empathic Moment
62. Third Step, Analysis of Empathic Data
63. Suicide and Deliberate Self-Harm: When Attachments Fail
64. Suicidal Behaviour in ‘Organised’ Insecure Attachment
65. Disorganised Attachment, Borderline Personality Disorder and Suicide
66. Therapeutic Strategies with Suicidal Borderline Clients
67. Out-Patient Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Suicidal Clients
68. Intensive Mentalisation-Based Therapy for Selected Suicidal Borderline Clients
69. Peter’s Nemesis
70. Being Supportive While Avoiding Iatrogenesis in ‘Treatment as Usual’ Clients
71. Susan’s Masks
72. Emotional Dysregulation and Suicide Risk: If You’ll Leave Me, I’ll Kill Myself!
73. Introduction
74. The Function of the Bond: The Attachment Perspective
75. The Loss of the Bond
76. Emotion Regulation
77. Emotion Dysregulation, Couple Functioning, and Suicide
78. Traumatic Subjective Experiences Invite Suicide
79. Method
80. Inferences
81. The Evolution of Psychoanalytic Thought Respecting Affective Traumatization
82. The Capacity, or Lack of It, to Bear Intense Affect
83. Affective Traumatization and “Mental Deconstruction”
84. Traumatic Affects of Suicidal Crises
85. Desperation, Hopelessness, and Despair
86. Anxiety
87. Feeling Abandoned and Loneliness
88. Worthlessness, Self-Hate, and Guilt
89. Rage
90. Repetition Compulsion
91. Childhood Abuse, Repetition Compulsion, and Later Suicide
92. Conclusion
93. An Illustrative Case: Peter F
94. Dissociation and Therapeutic Alliance
95. Definitions of Dissociation
96. Dissociation and Suicide
97. The Suicidal Mode
98. Trauma, Dissociation, and Suicide
99. Therapeutic Alliance
100. The Therapeutic Alliance with the Suicidal Patient
101. Recommendations for Treating Dissociative Disorder
102. Suicide-Specific Therapies
103. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention (CBT-SP)
104. The CAMS Approach
105. Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
106. A Collaborative Approach to Working with the Suicidal Mind
107. Broad Perspectives on the Phenomenology of Suicide
108. Shneidman’s Mentalist Approach
109. The Aeschi Approach
110. Specific Theoretical Orientations
111. Psychodynamic
112. Cognitive Therapy
113. Behavioral
114. Mentalization
115. The Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality
116. Empathy
117. Collaboration
118. Honesty
119. Challenges in Clinical Practice
120. Countertransference
121. Shame, Blame, and Issues of Control
122. Fear of Blame
123. CAMS as a Potentially Remedy
124. The Story of My Suicide
125. Anodyne Psychotherapy for Suicide: A Psychological View of Suicide
126. First, Some Philosophical Aspects of Suicide
127. A Psychological View of Suicide: Anodynic Psychotherapy

Editor Biography

Maurizio Pompili, MD, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Suicidology in the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and also coordinator of the Suicide Prevention Center at Sant’Andrea Hospital in Rome. Dr. Pompili received his MD and completed his specialization in Psychiatry (both summa cum laude) from the Sapienza University of Rome and obtained his doctoral degree in Experimental and Clinical Neurosciences from the same university. He has been a visiting scientist at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA, where he received a fellowship in psychiatry. In 2008 Dr. Pompili received the American Association of Suicidology’s Shneidman Award for “Outstanding contributions in research in suicidology”. He was the Italian representative of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) for 8 years and served as co-chair of the IASP Council of National Representatives. He is also a member of the International Academy for Suicide Research and the American Association of Suicidology. Dr. Pompili has published more than 300 papers on suicide, including original research articles, book chapters, and editorials. He has co-edited ten international books on suicide, including Evidence-Based Practice in Suicidology (Hogrefe & Huberr) and Suicide in the Words of Suicidologists (Nova). Maurizio Pompili is particularly active in collaborations with the Italian Ministry of Health and Italian Health Institute. His H-index is 32 (Scopus, September 2015).