Description: Looking at the problem of suicide and suicidal behavior from psychoanalytical perspectives, Kind analyses the various motivations for such impulses and the therapist's countertransference reactions to a suicidal patient. Therapeutic strategies for dealing with threatened or actual suicide are evaluated within the clinical context. Suicidal patients, for example, may provoke emotions of anger, guilt, and helplessness in their therapists: these emotions only intensify if a patient makes a successful suicide attempt. Is the therapist right to feel guilty?

The issue of guilt is used by Kind as a starting point for his exploration of what suicidal behavior actually represents. He bases his analysis on clinical observations made during therapy with psychosomatic patients, neurotics, and patients with borderline disorders. The dynamics of transference and countertransference, object relations, transitional domains and types of interaction, both within the patient and between the patient and therapist, are discussed. Understanding the origins of suicidal impulses makes it possible for the therapist to cope with his or her own reactions to the patient's behavior. This book provides an insightful and comprehensive study, which will be of interest to all those working in mental health care and related professions.

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