This book explores suicide prevention perspectives from around the world, considering both professionals' points of view as well as first-person accounts from suicidal individuals.

Scholars around the globe have puzzled over what makes a person suicidal and what is in the minds of those individuals who die by suicide. Most often the focus is not on the motives for suicide, nor on the phenomenology of this act, but on what is found from small cohorts of suicidal individuals.

This book offers a tentative synthesis of a complex phenomenon, and sheds some light on models of suicide that are less frequently encountered in the literature.

Written by international experts, it makes a valuable contribution to the field of suicidology that appeals to a wide readership, from mental health professionals to researchers in suicidology and students.

Maurizio Pompili, MD, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Suicidology at the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. He is also the Director of the Residency Training Program in Psychiatry of his faculty and the Director of the Suicide Prevention Center at Sant'Andrea Hospital in Rome. Prof. Pompili received his M.D. degree, and completed his specialization in Psychiatry (both summa cum laude) at the Sapienza University of Rome and obtained his doctoral degree in Experimental and Clinical Neurosciences at the same university. He has been a Visiting Scientist at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA, where he was awarded a fellowship in psychiatry. In 2008 Prof. Pompili received the American Association of Suicidology's Shneidman Award for Outstanding contributions to research in suicidology . In addition to being the Italian Representative of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) for eight years, he has also been one of the Vice-Presidents of this association. He is now Co-Chair of the IASP Special Interest Group in Risk Resilience and Reasons for Living, and a member of the International Academy for Suicide Research and the American Association of Suicidology. He is President of the Suicidology Section of the Italian Psychiatric Society. Prof. Pompili has published more than 350 papers on suicide, bipolar disorders and other psychiatric conditions, including original research articles, book chapters and editorials. He has co-edited ten international books on suicide, including Phenomenology of Suicide (Springer). He ranks in the top 10 of 500 world suicide authors listed in the ISI Web of Science. He has been ranked number one on the list of global experts on suicide by Expertscape.


Theories and models of suicidal behaviour.- Neurobiological approach to the study of suicide.- The Journey Back from Suicide.- Suicide as Syndemic.- NSSI as an Entrypoint for Prevention with Adolescents and Young Adults.- Resilience Following a Suicide Attempt.- The Problems of the Unified Registrations of Suicide.- Risk and Protective Factors of Suicide from a Cultural Perspective.- Inadequacy of Training for Addressing Suicide.- Protective Factors Against Suicidal Behavior.- Psychological pain as main ingredient of suicide risk.- Reasons for living in suicide prevention.- Suicide risk formulation.- The Modular Assessment of Risk for Imminent Suicide (MARIS).- How to ask about suicide.- Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality approach.- Differentiation of suicidal behaviour in clinical practice.- Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale.- Postdiction in the PA: A cue or formula.- Trauma and Suicide.