NIGHT FALLS FAST
Understanding suicide
by Kay Redfield Jamison
TEA Editions, September 2003
279 pages, € 8,50

FULL TEXT (DOC)

The author, who gained public acclaim through her book, "An unquiet mind", tackles the subject of suicide in all its disarming complexity, bringing together in a single work, the full array of knowledge, research and clinical experience that has built up around this painful reality.

The editorial approach and the author's narrative skills ensure comprehension of the problems underpinning suicidal behaviour, without losing sight of the terrible individual suffering.

The book is divided into four sections that explore all aspects of the suicide continuum. The opening historic introduction stresses how suicide is a ubiquitously present event, occurring across the ages, but preserving the ideologies and contemporary traits characteristic of the historical period considered.

The second part provides a primarily nosographic view of the phenomenon, dwelling on psychopathology and considering the statistical distribution of the methods most frequently adopted in suicide intentionality and planning. In the third section, rather like a journey through the depths of a dark sea, Ms. Jamison reflects on the biological and genetic dimensions of suicide, backed by extensive knowledge of the scientific literature, which has yielded data and reflections over many years.

Lastly, the author examines the delicate relationship between the intense suffering underlying suicidal behaviour and public opinion, exhorting intense, productive cooperation with the mass media and collective understanding of the suicide phenomenon, which all too often leaves survivors alone to face their pain.

While scientifically rigorous, from between the lines emerges the direct participation of Ms. Jamison who, after a long period of depression-related distress, attempted to take her own life at the age of twenty-eight. It is a book for specialists, but is also suited to a wider public that wishes to penetrate a subject all to often considered embarrassing, underground, stigmatized.