Assessing and Managing the Deadly Patient

In Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention of Suicidal Behavior (2005; see record 2004-21460-000), Robert I. Yufit and David Lester have written and edited a superb, 482-page volume. Contributors include psychologists in independent practice, hospital psychologists, medical school psychologists, university faculty, and even a county district school board member in Canada. This rich and broad set of authors makes for a well rounded and very useful text, suitable for practicing clinicians who seek to review summaries of pertinent research, theories, and techniques, that also lends itself well to those students who wish to amass foundation knowledge, in the state of science and practice with suicidal patients. The first six chapters of the book are focused on screening and assessment for suicide potential. These chapters include extensive reviews of suicide assessment scales, and after the usual material on the reliability, validity, base rates, and general construction weaknesses of suicide scales, some really useful clinical reviews of some specific and promising instruments are provided. Chapters 7-14 of the book are concerned with the treatment of suicidality and are led by a chapter on classical systems of psychotherapy and their views about the origins and treatment of suicidal behavior. This section of the book is a delightful, brief-but-concise review of several major theories and techniques relevant to the treatment of suicide. The various authors provide well-written, research-informed, and condensed reviews of the theoretical etiology of suicidal behavior, goals of therapy, core interventions and techniques, and a general overview of each method. The third part of the book deals with special issues such as easing the legacy of suicide, suicide in the schools, colleges and suicide, and suicide and terrorism. Yufit and Lester have produced a work that will be valued by clinicians and trainers for some time to come. It will predictably survive to second and future editions in which research and techniques can be updated. Clinicians will likely become dependent on Yufit and Lester's updates well into the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)