Cry of Pain: Understanding Suicide and Self-harm

In developing this idea, Mark Williams explores the whole issue of suicide and attempted suicide in the light of the latest research findings. He reviews the changing patterns of suicidal behavior: the rapid increase in suicide in young men and its decrease in women, and the large increase in self-harm in both sexes. He discusses psychiatric factors, such as depression and schizophrenia; social factors, such as unemployment and isolation; and psychological factors, such as the impaired memory for the past that prevents the person from seeing ways of coping with the present. When these combine to produce feelings of hopelessness and entrapment, then thoughts of suicide are rarely far away. But is suicide ever justified? Mark Williams considers the moral issues surrounding euthanasia and rational suicide, and how suicidal behavior is portrayed in the media.