This vital resource--edited by Harvard Medical School's DouglasJacobs, a nationally recognized expert on suicide anddepression--is the definitive guide for helping mental healthprofessionals determine the risk for suicide and appropriateinterventions for suicidal or at-risk patients. Created primarilyfor mental health clinicians (with several chapters directed towardprimary care physicians), the book is a hands-on guide for thosewho are often the first line of defense for assessing if a patientor client is suicidal.

Comprehensive in scope, the book offers a wealth of informationabout such useful topics as inpatient and outpatient issues,psychopharmacology, and advice about working with specialpopulations. Most importantly, the book's contributors detaileffective techniques for intervention and offer a model of suicideassessment that focuses on predisposing conditions, potentiatingconditions, and specific suicide inquiries. As a special feature,the book also includes a helpful section on contracts--agreementsmade with the patient not to harm themselves--and useful factsabout the subsequent liability issues. In addition, there is acompelling analysis of the controversial issues surroundingassisted suicide as well as an honest personal account ofsuicidality from a professional who has experienced it for herself.