CONTENTS

About This Course

Table of Contents

1. The Nature and Scope of Suicide
2. Recognizing the Progressive Development of Suicide
3. Substance Abuse as a Major Contributor to Suicide
4. Suicide Across the Life Span
5. Special Populations and Suicide Risk
6. Prevention and Early Intervention for Suicide and Substance Abuse Problems

Supplements
References
Resources

Holding the Lifeline
A Guide to Suicide Prevention

Suicide Across the Generations

Each person is an individual. However, we are inevitably influenced and shaped by our biological relatives and others who are in close contact with us over an extended period of time. How we behave, the choices we make, what our personalities are like, the values we possess, our culture, religion, socioeconomic status, what our physical and/or mental health is like, may be passed from one generation to the next.

Family history of suicide and mental or substance abuse disorder are among the most frequent risk factors for suicide in the United States. ref

Most Americans know that novelist Ernest Hemingway killed himself. Few may know that five people in Hemingway's family over four generations died from the same cause. ref