Half in Love With Death by Joel Paris

Half in Love With Death by Joel Paris

Half in Love With Death presents a new way for therapists to manage chronically suicidal patients, an incredibly challenging task for clinicians and one where an insufficient amount of literature exists to guide professionals. Author Joel Paris suggests an approach that defies conventional wisdoms about whether suicide can be predicted or prevented. He asserts that managing chronically suicidal patients begins with tolerating suicidality, understanding the inner world of patients, avoiding repeated hospitalizations, and focusing on life situations that maintain suicidal ideas and behaviors. Each chapter in the book develops a theoretical perspective based on empirical data, and many are illustrated by clinical examples. Topics addressed throughout the text include: *distinctions among various types of suicidality; *the inner world of the chronically suicidal patient, with a particular focus on pain, emptiness, and hopelessness; *the relationship between chronic suicidality and personality disorders, especially the category of borderline personality; *the effectiveness of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for chronically suicidal patients; and *the risks of litigation in managing this patient population. This volume is a crucially important resource for clinicians who treat chronically suicidal patients, as it fills a gap in existing literature and provides enlightened guidelines that stem from a large body of research in the field.

“The management of suicide remains the almost evidence-free zone left in routine clinical practiceWhat so many people do when confronted by a suicidal patient is to throw evidence out of the window because of fear the patient will follow. Joel Paris reminds us, and we defi nitely need reminding, that most people who harm themselves do not eventually commit suicide, that self-mutilation is not suicidal behaviour, that ‘admission to hospital’ and a host of other quick fi xes are not the answers to problems that take time and care to control and resolve.”

—Peter Tyrer, FRCPsych, FRCP, FMedSci Professor of Community Psychiatry, Imperial College, London

Joel Paris, MD, PhD, was born in New York City but has spent most of his life in Canada. He earned an MD from McGill University in 1964, where he also trained in psychiatry.

Dr. Paris has been a member of the McGill psychiatry department since 1972, where he is a full professor and has served as department chair.

Dr. Paris's research interest is in borderline personality disorder. Over the past 20 years, he has conducted research on its causes and outcome. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and is the author of 18 previous books.

Dr. Paris is also an educator who has won awards for his teaching and is the former editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780805860818
ISBN 10	0805860819
Title	Half in Love With Death
Author	Joel Paris
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Taylor & Francis Inc
Year published	2006-06-21
Number of pages	246
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.