"Suicide: Understanding and Intervening" by Jeffrey Black. A Small Review of a Small Booklet

Suicide: Understanding and InterveningSuicide: Understanding and Intervening by Jeffrey S. Black
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This short read is helpful for caregivers, pastors, friends and family of someone who has voiced suicidal thoughts or seems strongly moving in the direction of ending their life. Jeffrey Black gives several useful explanations as to the inner workings of someone who may be suicidal, and a few beneficial ways to engage them and seek to help them.

This is a guide for the non-professional, and the author has listed several of the indicators that a person may be genuinely suicidal. Unfortunately I felt like some of the marks are missing. The pamphlet would have been even stronger if it had listed out more signs. Here are the standard symptoms (some of which are listed in the booklet and some that aren't): (1) Excessive sadness or moodiness. (2) Sudden calmness after a period of depression or moodiness. (3) Withdrawal including the loss of interest or pleasure in activities the person previously enjoyed. (4) Changes in personality and/or appearance, which may well show up in the sudden loss of concern about his or her personal appearance. (5) Dangerous or self-harmful behavior. (6) Recent trauma or life crisis. (7) Making preparations; beginning to put his or her personal business in order. This might include visiting friends and family members, giving away personal possessions, making a will, and cleaning up his or her room or home. (8) And threatening suicide. I lifted these eight benchmarks from the Cleveland Clinic's website, you can also find them on WebMD. I would add one more: (9) Having an accessible or likely plan for completing the suicide.

I found this small manual a good resource. I had my church elders read it, and we discussed it at our last elder meeting. This inexpensive pamphlet would make a solid addition to a congregation's book table, but would also be a worthy addition to a pastor's or elder's library. I highly recommend the booklet.


View all my reviews

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" (Rev. Ed.) by John Fea. A Review

Image
  John Fea is a professor of history at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA. A university founded in 1909 by the Brethren in Christ Church. He originally published "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction" in 2011, and it was revised in 2016. This 328-page paperback is packed full with Colonial and American history, drawing from original sources to answer that question. It is a book written "for the historically minded and thoughtful reader who is looking for help in sorting" out this question, avoiding polemics (xix). Since we live in a sound-bite culture, Fea recognizes that it is difficult to have a sustained dialogue on this topic, but he makes a valiant effort toward having that sustained dialogue. The book reads fairly straightforward, and doesn't seem to get bogged down in the contentious mudpuddles or bogs. In the end, Fea seems to get his point across. To answer the reigning question if America was founded as a Christian...
Read more

Union with Christ - An Application

Image
  (This was my weekly letter to my congregation on Wednesday, 21 February 2024) This morning in my devotional reading, I was working through 1 Corinthians 8. Though I’ve read these words a huge number of times over the years, today one verse caused me to stop and take stock.  Paul wrote, “ Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ ” (1 Corinthians 8:12). What struck me is a couple of things. First, in God’s saving work, we are – by grace alone – united (hitched, bonded, ingrafted) to Christ so much so, that what happens to us happens to him, and what is his becomes ours (think of Galatians 2:20, for example). As Sinclair Ferguson put it, “through union with Christ all that is his by incarnation becomes ours through faith” (“The Christian Life,” 110). Let that percolate in your heart for a while. Your fear, anxiety, tears, and so forth, he feels. And his “ Peace, be still ” is yours. Second, the way we treat one an...
Read more

"Ah, Lord! We are Animated by Anger and Anxiety, Fear and Fury..."

Image
I hesitate to put this out there because of the combative environment we are in at present. But I think some souls will take courage from this, and some will also join with me as we get to the end of this little composition. I am struck by the words of God in Zechariah 8. As he rehearses the waywardness and faithlessness of his people in the past, he clearly declares that he " set every man against his neighbor " (8:10). That got me thinking long ago. I started putting the pieces together and realized that one of God's acts of judgment is division, setting a man against his neighbor. That's what happened when he divided his people into the northern tribes and southern tribes (see 1 Kings 11:26-40). Because of Solomon's turning aside, allowing his wives to turn his heart away from the God of his father, David, the Lord brings about a rift in God's people. And this pattern of divisive judgment runs throughout Scripture. On the other hand, truthful unity is the g...
Read more