2nd Edition
Relating to Self-Harm and Suicide Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Practice, Theory and Prevention
Foreword
J O’Reilly
Introduction to the second edition
Stephen Briggs, William Crouch and Alessandra Lemma
PART I Conceptual framework
1 Psychoanalysis and suicide: process and typology
Robert Hale
2 The father transference during a pre-suicide state
Donald Campbell
3 Self-break-up and the descent into suicide
John T. Maltsberger
4 Who is killing what or whom? Some notes on the internal phenomenology of suicide
David Bell
5 A psychoanalytical approach to suicide in adolescents
Robin Anderson
6 Treatment priorities after adolescent suicide attempts
François Ladame
7 Mental pain, pain-producing constructs, the suicidal body and suicide
Israel Orbach
PART II Psychoanalytic practice
8 Hostility and suicide: the experience of aggression from within and without
Mark j. Goldblatt
9 Suicidal thoughts during an analysis
Elmar Etzersdorfer
10 Suicidality and women: obsession and the use of the body
Benigna Gerisch
11 Attacks on life: suicidality and self-harm in young people
Jeanne Magagna
12 Countertransference, role responsiveness and work with suicidal patients
William Crouch
PART III Applications in practice, prevention and postvention
13 On suicide prevention in hospitals: empirical observations and psychodynamic thinking
Frank Matakas and Elisabeth Rohrbach
14 On being affected without being infected: managing suicidal thoughts in student counselling
Ann Heyno
15 Suicidality in later life
Reinhard Lindner, Astrid Altenhöfer, Georg Fiedler, and Paul Götze
16 Skin toughening and skin porosity: addressing the issue of self-harm by omission
Maggie Turp
17 Psychological safety: a missing concept in suicide prevention
Martin Seager
18 Postvention: the impact of suicide and suicidal behaviour on adolescents and parents
Stephen Briggs
19 The delusional narrative of suicide bereavement and the psychodynamics of suicide loss
Rachel Gibbons
20 Speaking with the skin: self-harm and its meanings for incarcerated women
Anna Motz
21 When gender is a carrier for the unbearable: understanding of suicidality in transgender individuals
Roberto D’Angelo
22 Gay men and suicidality: the development and nature of the critical superego
Nick Spinks
23 Psychoanalytic understanding of the request for assisted suicide
Stephen Briggs, Reinhard Lindner, and Mark J. GOLDBLATT
Biography
Stephen Briggs, PhD, is an emeritus professor at the University of East London and an honorary professor at the Universities of Exeter and Nottingham. He is a member of the Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists and a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Alessandra Lemma is a fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society and a chartered clinical and counselling psychologist. She is also a visiting professor for the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London and a consultant at the Anna Freud Centre.
William Crouch was a consultant clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in the NHS. He is a fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and now works in private practice.
'Suicide is inevitably a relational experience – it occurs in relation to one’s own body, to internal objects, and external objects, including professionals who are attempting to help. A psychoanalytic perspective, with its inevitable focus on the relational field, allows for an understanding of suicide and self-harm in all its complexity, thus paving the way for more nuanced approaches to treatment and prevention. This scholarly collection of chapters contains psychoanalytic perspectives from an international and varied group of experts in the field. The editors have successfully updated the 2008 version to reflect the significant changes that have occurred in socio-cultural and institutional contexts, bringing in new chapters on high-risk groups such as gay men, transgender individuals and women in prison. Discussions on assisted dying and bereavement by suicide sit well alongside the expanded elucidation and elaboration of psychoanalytic theory to consider the dynamics of suicide and self-harm. This is a book that should be widely available to clinicians, educators, service managers and policy makers.'
Dr Joanne Stubley, consultant medical psychotherapist & psychoanalyst, Tavistock Trauma Service, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
'This important book brings together comprehensive trauma and psychoanalytic informed perspectives on suicide drawing together the voices and experience of leading clinical practitioners and researchers working in the field of suicide study. The book makes for essential reading for psychotherapists and counsellors, but also should be digested by all practitioners working in mental health settings who will inevitably come into contact with clients who have suicidal feelings. Thinking about suicide and talking about suicide is difficult we know, but this book makes that challenge a bit easier.'
Professor Gary Winship, Education, Trauma & Mental Health, University of Nottingham. Editor-in-Chief, British Journal of Psychotherapy.
'Relating to Self-harm and Suicide: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Practice, Theory and Prevention offers a comprehensive approach to understanding the subject, written by leading psychoanalytic clinicians and writers. This book will be indispensable for all psychotherapists and clinicians working across the life span, and I would strongly recommend this to anybody working in the field of helping individuals with issues related to self-harm and suicidality.'
Dr Danny Goldberger, consultant child & adolescent psychotherapist, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Lambeth CAMHS
'Psychoanalytic ideas challenge processes of simplification and rationalisation which ultimately conceal very painful realities; we are all potentially vulnerable to suicidal states of mind and action, we may be bereaved by suicidal acts undertaken by those we love and attempt to help and we ultimately may not be able to prevent this happening despite our best efforts. The chapters within this book illuminate this profound and difficult reality and show how from a psychoanalytic frame we can look into some of the most violent acts, causing the deepest pain to others, with curiosity, intellectual commitment and emotional openness to provide ways to understand based upon humanity, intellectual rigour and courage.'
Dr J O’Reilly consultant psychiatrist in Medical Psychotherapy, chair medical psychotherapy faculty Royal College of Psychiatrists, member, British Psychoanalytic Society
