Relating to Self-Harm and Suicide

Relating to Self-Harm and Suicide presents original studies and research from contemporary psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and academics focusing on the psychoanalytic understanding of suicide and self-harm, and how this can be applied to clinical work and policy.

This book suggests that suicide and self-harm must be understood as having meaning within interpersonal and intrapsychic relationships, offering a new and more hopeful approach to prevention and recovery. Divided into three sections, this revised edition includes: a theoretical overview and conceptual framework, psychoanalytic practice with self-harming and suicidal patients and applications of psychoanalytic thinking to suicide and self-harm prevention. Enriched with detailed examples illustrating this approach in a range of settings and with different groups and populations, this book offers an international perspective and contemporary understanding of psychoanalytic approaches to working with suicidal and self-harming people.

This book will be helpful to psychoanalytic psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and other mental health professionals wanting to integrate psychoanalytic ideas into their work with self-harming and suicidal people. It will also be useful to academic, teachers, researchers, and policy makers involved in suicidal prevention.