Tag: Suicide

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Explaining Suicide: Patterns, Motivations, and What Notes Reveal

The rate of suicides is at its highest level in nearly 30 years. Suicide notes have long been thought to be valuable resources for understanding suicide motivation, but up to now the small sample sizes available have made an in-depth analysis difficult. Explaining Suicide: Patterns, Motivations, and What Notes Reveal represents a large-scale analysis of suicide motivation across multiple ages during the same time period. This was made possible via a unique dataset of all suicide notes collected by the coroner’s office in southwestern Ohio 2000–2009.

Based on an analysis of this dataset, the book identifies top motivations for suicide, how these differ between note writers and non-note writers, and what this can tell us about better suicide prevention. The book reveals the extent to which suicide is motivated by interpersonal violence, substance abuse, physical pain, grief, feelings of failure, and mental illness. Additionally, it discusses other risk factors, what differentiates suicide attempters from suicide completers, and lastly what might serve as protective factors toward resilience.

Analyzes 1200+ suicide cases from one coroner’s officeIdentifies the top motivations for suicide that are based on suicide notesDiscusses the extent to which suicides are impulsive vs. plannedLeads to a better understanding on how to prevent suicideEmphasizes resilience factors over risk factors

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In the Suicide Mountains

An intricately woven fable filled with magical creatures…and astonishing surprises.

In this wonderful fantasy, John Gardner weaves tales within tales to bring a magical world to vivid life. When three travelers on their way to the Suicide Mountains meet an enigmatic man, the Abbot of the Ancient Monastery, they begin a series of wild adventures in which they must confront mystical creatures…and come to terms with the roles fate has determined for each of them.

Superbly imagined and brimming with philosophical insight, In the Suicide Mountains is a tribute to Gardner’s passion for medieval storytelling, and an unforgettable novel in its own right.

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Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers & Mart

This is an account of traveling through the West Bank and Gaza, into the prisons of Iraq, down the alleyways of the Casablanca slums, to Chechnya, into the radicalized neighborhoods of Belgium, the UK, France and the Netherlands, of sitting with the hostages of Beslan and Nord Ost, and of talking to terrorists. Dr. Speckhard gives us the inside story of what puts vulnerable individuals on the terrorist trajectory and what might take them back off of it. With more than four hundred interviews with terrorists and their friends, family members and hostages, Dr. Speckhard is one of the few experts to have such a breadth of experience. She visited, and even stayed overnight, in the intimate spaces of terrorists’ homes, interviewed them in their stark prison cells, or met them in the streets of their cities and villages. Dr. Speckhard gives us a rare glimpse of terrorists within their own contexts. From the mouths of terrorists, their family members, comrades-and even their hostages, we learn of the manipulation of human weakness that can lead to violent acts. Through careful research of culture and religion and a genuine desire to understand the factors that motivate individuals to embrace terrorism, Dr. Speckhard deftly defines the lethal cocktail that leads to the creation of a terrorist. An internationally recognized expert on the psychological aspects of terrorism and an expert in the area of posttraumatic stress disorder, Dr. Speckhard’s research also produces a knowledge of how to disengage, deradicalize, rehabilitate, and reverse the trajectory of a terrorist. Dr. Speckhard’s studies spanning over a decade provide us with a deeper understanding of one of the most dangerous and violent phenomena of our times.