Suicide: The Basics

Suicide: The Basics is a concise, accessible, and evidence-informed introduction to the study, prevention, and lived experience of suicide.

Written for students and readers approaching the topic for the first time, this book explains key areas in suicidology such as theories, risk and protective factors, and suicidal crisis processes. Rather than reducing suicide to diagnoses or statistics, it explains how suicidal crises develop through pain, meaning, relationships, and moments of feeling trapped. Bridging science and humanity, it shows not just what suicide is, but how it unfolds and where intervention can make a real difference. By considering methods of assessment, treatments, and community and policy strategies that help, the author explores how age, culture, and identity shape both vulnerability and recovery. He provides a compassionate and straightforward overview of suicide with short sections, illustrative tables, end-of-chapter summaries, and annotated reading lists.

By including practical ways to find help, support others, and pursue further study, this book will appeal to students of counseling, nursing, philosophy, psychology, public health, social work, and sociology, as well as readers with a general interest in the topic of mental wellbeing and suicide prevention.