DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Suicide Prevention Contracting

The Pitfalls, Perils, and Seven Safer Alternatives

Stephen J Edwards author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Jason Aronson Publishers

Published:11th Dec '13

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Suicide Prevention Contracting cover

In Suicide Prevention Contracting: The Pitfalls, Perils, and Seven Safer Alternatives, Edwards and Goj expose one of the biggest myths operating in health care and human services for forty years or more. This book will challenge clinicians and their superiors who see Suicide Prevention Contracting (SPC) as a state-of-the-art standard of care intervention. No medical or mental health care professional, educator, lawyer, or health and human services decision maker can afford to ignore what this book presents. A family of new clinical terms and interlinked concepts, describing virtually every aspect of SPC is clearly articulated and ready for use in the workplace. Not until now has a book so simply yet comprehensively explained the widespread troubling practice of SPC. Written in an accessible narrative style, this landmark book presents vital information about a questionable suicide prevention intervention operating within this era of evidence-based practice and personal legal risk protection and, in doing so, offers seven safer alternative procedures.

The aim of Suicide Prevention Contracting: The Pitfalls, Perils, and Seven Safer Alternatives is commendable: to caution mental health professionals against unthinkingly using nosuicide contracts. Authors Stephen J. Edwards and Christopher Goj firmly believe that nosuicide contracts are unhelpful, actually compromising treatment because, rather than reinforcing the clinician–client relationship, they erode the empathy and compassion that clinicians offer clients. Thus, this book not only condemns no suicide contracts as unhelpful but also warns that such contracts may go so far as to cause harm. . . .Edwards and Goj provide valid points and pull data from an impressively large sample. . . .[T]his book . . . [would] be . . . useful as a reference for clinicians. * PsycCRITIQUES *
Edwards and Goj offer a comprehensive review of the research and problems related to ‘no suicide contracts.’ They offer a variety of clinically viable alternatives to help mental health professionals work with suicidal patients. -- John D. Gavazzi, PsyD, private practice
As Edwards and Goj show with both clinical and scholarly acumen, ‘no-suicide’ contracts are both ill-advised and distressingly common. We need alternatives—clinically useful and research supported alternatives—and these authors provide several. -- Thomas Joiner, PhD, Florida State University
In this era of evidence-based suicide prevention it is surprising that the ‘no-suicide’ contract has endured. This new book—the first devoted solely to the ‘no-suicide’ contract—discusses why it should not be used and suggests seven safer substitutes. The book is a must for all those who work with suicidal clients, for those who supervise them, and for those in training. -- Annette Beautrais, PhD, University of Canterbury

ISBN: 9780765709967

Dimensions: 233mm x 161mm x 22mm

Weight: 476g

236 pages