Suicidal Behaviour: The Search for Psychic Economy - Softcover

Kind, Jurgen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 185302788X ISBN 13: 9781853027888

Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1999

Synopsis

Looking at the problem of suicide and suicidal behaviour from a psychoanalytical perspective, 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.
The issue of guilt is used by Kind as a starting point for his exploration of what suicidal behaviour 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 the 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 behaviour. This book provides an insightful and comprehensive study, which will be of interest to all those working in mental health care and related professions.

About this title

From the Author

Jurgen Kind currently works in private practice as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He is also a teaching analyst at the Lou Andreas Salome Institute for Psychoanalysis in Gottingen. He has lectured on the subject of suicidal behaviour throughout Germany and Austria.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 185302788X
• ISBN 13: 9781853027888
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240