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Understanding and preventing suicide: New perspectives
Book Reviews This chapter as well as others promotes theory development from a feminist perspective and values women’s knowledge. A frequent theme throughout the book, is the need to allow women to describe their experience. The editors’ choices of chapters reflects that a feminine voice in ethics can transform the American culture. The writings in this book are a marvelous display of the critical thinking needed to revolutionize health care. Hence, the reader will be challenged to
Understanding and Preventing Suicide: New Perspectives, by DAVID LESTER. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1990. 121 pp. Some interesting ideas are put forth in this slim volume; indeed its main fault is that there are perhaps too many ideas and each is dealt with in too cursory a fashion. As the author’s stated purpose is simply to stimulate new research into the etiology of suicidal behaviour and to suggest new strategies for prevention, he may be forgiven for the approach. However, it is difficult to embrace the preventative strategies before examining the etiological theories in much greater detail. Lester contends that theories of suicide are not sufficiently developed and that it is therefore not surprising that efforts to prevent suicide have not succeeded. He suggests that theory development has been impeded by a dearth of ideas about how suicidal behaviours develop. Lester then goes on to describe theories which have been used to explain crime and delinquency and makes extrapolations from these theories to explain suicidal behaviour and to provide approaches to prevention. He makes it clear that he does not see suicide as a crime; rather, he is simply suggesting that by viewing suicide from a criminological perspective, the existing repertoire of approaches to prevention of suicide may be usefully expanded. The rationale for using criminological theories as a source of new perspectives on suicide is discussed very briefly in the introductory chapter and appears to relate more to the failure of other approaches than to any positive value of taking a criminological perspective. Indeed, the introductory chapter serves as a means of dealing with several large issues in a rather perfunctory manner: the failure of psychiatry, psychology, and sociology to provide an adequate paradigm for suicide is discussed in under two pages, and the contentious methodological issue of whether completed suicide can be studied by examining attempted suicide is dealt with in less than 3 pages.
In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare 1880-1940. edited by ROGER CCIOTER.Routledge, London, 1992.292 pp. (hardback). The introduction and the 10 chapters that comprise this book are a collection of tightly researched topics on the history of the concern for children in public health policy and legislation. The setting is principally England, but there is some comparison with Germany, France, Australia and the United States. A very interesting chapter by Beinart (Chap. 9) uses the analysis of photographs to comment on the perceived place of children (or lack thereof) in the mind of colonial administrators in Africa.
reflect upon patriarchy.
1107 new paradigms
College of Nursing Aduli Health Department University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte. NC 28223 U.S.A.
and to shed the old skin of
SONYA
R. HARDIN
Seven theories of crime and delinquency are described: classical theory, positivist individualist, social structure, learning theory, social control. social reaction and social conflict. The latter two theories, according to Lester, have been given no consideration by suicidologists. He might have been wiser to have concentrated his efforts on these theories and provided us with greater depth. Instead, there is a very brief summary of each major criminological theory, the theory is then used to explain suicide, and the implications for prevention which flow from that theory are discussed. It is difficult to argue the statistics presented by Lester regarding the suicide rate and the fact that a variety of efforts have failed to result in any significant decreases. The idea of turning to a different discipline for ideas of where to go next is appealing and some of the ideas he extracts are provocative. The result is perhaps what Lester intended; some new thinking is undoubtedly stimulated. However there are many avenues of inquiry which might prove useful. For example the differences in rates between the U.S. (12.4/ 100,000) and Canada (13.5/ IOO,OOO),the difference in most at-risk groups (the elderly in the U.S. and the elderly plus young adults in Canada) or the rate of increase in suicide among young men and in Native peoples, are each areas worthy of exploration. As for new insights that will help us to “understand and prevent suicide” at a more micro level, one might prefer to recommend William Styron’s even slimmer volume Darkness Visible. Styron’s poignant description of his own depression not only increases our understanding of the progression through which one may move toward suicide, but also explains very clearly and very persuasively how, in certain cases, we can act to halt that progression. Unioersity of Toronto Toronto, Ontario Canada M5T IWS
JUDITH FRIEDLAND
What becomes clear as one reads this history is that the transition of the view of children as adults in miniature to that of children as persons who are evolving into adults developed rather recently during the period between the two World Wars. It was the social and economic upheavals of the late nineteenth century that brought change to the Dickensian world of children and led political figures such as Margaret McMillan to enact child labor laws (Chap. 1). These were later followed by pronatalist policies that promoted child allowances for families (Chap. 10). Anti-vivisectionists opposed experimentation on orphan children and demanded a more responsible process for the development of serums and vaccination procedures (Chaps 3, 4 and 5).
Understanding and Preventing Suicide: New Perspectives, by DAVID LESTER. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1990. 121 pp. Some interesting ideas are put forth in this slim volume; indeed its main fault is that there are perhaps too many ideas and each is dealt with in too cursory a fashion. As the author’s stated purpose is simply to stimulate new research into the etiology of suicidal behaviour and to suggest new strategies for prevention, he may be forgiven for the approach. However, it is difficult to embrace the preventative strategies before examining the etiological theories in much greater detail. Lester contends that theories of suicide are not sufficiently developed and that it is therefore not surprising that efforts to prevent suicide have not succeeded. He suggests that theory development has been impeded by a dearth of ideas about how suicidal behaviours develop. Lester then goes on to describe theories which have been used to explain crime and delinquency and makes extrapolations from these theories to explain suicidal behaviour and to provide approaches to prevention. He makes it clear that he does not see suicide as a crime; rather, he is simply suggesting that by viewing suicide from a criminological perspective, the existing repertoire of approaches to prevention of suicide may be usefully expanded. The rationale for using criminological theories as a source of new perspectives on suicide is discussed very briefly in the introductory chapter and appears to relate more to the failure of other approaches than to any positive value of taking a criminological perspective. Indeed, the introductory chapter serves as a means of dealing with several large issues in a rather perfunctory manner: the failure of psychiatry, psychology, and sociology to provide an adequate paradigm for suicide is discussed in under two pages, and the contentious methodological issue of whether completed suicide can be studied by examining attempted suicide is dealt with in less than 3 pages.
In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare 1880-1940. edited by ROGER CCIOTER.Routledge, London, 1992.292 pp. (hardback). The introduction and the 10 chapters that comprise this book are a collection of tightly researched topics on the history of the concern for children in public health policy and legislation. The setting is principally England, but there is some comparison with Germany, France, Australia and the United States. A very interesting chapter by Beinart (Chap. 9) uses the analysis of photographs to comment on the perceived place of children (or lack thereof) in the mind of colonial administrators in Africa.
reflect upon patriarchy.
1107 new paradigms
College of Nursing Aduli Health Department University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte. NC 28223 U.S.A.
and to shed the old skin of
SONYA
R. HARDIN
Seven theories of crime and delinquency are described: classical theory, positivist individualist, social structure, learning theory, social control. social reaction and social conflict. The latter two theories, according to Lester, have been given no consideration by suicidologists. He might have been wiser to have concentrated his efforts on these theories and provided us with greater depth. Instead, there is a very brief summary of each major criminological theory, the theory is then used to explain suicide, and the implications for prevention which flow from that theory are discussed. It is difficult to argue the statistics presented by Lester regarding the suicide rate and the fact that a variety of efforts have failed to result in any significant decreases. The idea of turning to a different discipline for ideas of where to go next is appealing and some of the ideas he extracts are provocative. The result is perhaps what Lester intended; some new thinking is undoubtedly stimulated. However there are many avenues of inquiry which might prove useful. For example the differences in rates between the U.S. (12.4/ 100,000) and Canada (13.5/ IOO,OOO),the difference in most at-risk groups (the elderly in the U.S. and the elderly plus young adults in Canada) or the rate of increase in suicide among young men and in Native peoples, are each areas worthy of exploration. As for new insights that will help us to “understand and prevent suicide” at a more micro level, one might prefer to recommend William Styron’s even slimmer volume Darkness Visible. Styron’s poignant description of his own depression not only increases our understanding of the progression through which one may move toward suicide, but also explains very clearly and very persuasively how, in certain cases, we can act to halt that progression. Unioersity of Toronto Toronto, Ontario Canada M5T IWS
JUDITH FRIEDLAND
What becomes clear as one reads this history is that the transition of the view of children as adults in miniature to that of children as persons who are evolving into adults developed rather recently during the period between the two World Wars. It was the social and economic upheavals of the late nineteenth century that brought change to the Dickensian world of children and led political figures such as Margaret McMillan to enact child labor laws (Chap. 1). These were later followed by pronatalist policies that promoted child allowances for families (Chap. 10). Anti-vivisectionists opposed experimentation on orphan children and demanded a more responsible process for the development of serums and vaccination procedures (Chaps 3, 4 and 5).