It’s two books smashed into one, though the discontinuity isn’t as large as one might expect.  Resolving Social Conflicts and Field Theory in Social Science are both works of Kurt Lewin.  I’ve been a fan of his work for some time not just because he was one of the first people to describe a phase-gate […] The post Book Review-Resolving Social Conflicts and Field Theory in Social Science first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

I grew up at a time when I was gone hours a day, and my parents didn’t have any way of finding me.  One summer before I had a driver’s license and a car, I rode literally hundreds of miles on my bicycle in the town of Bay City, Michigan.  It’s a time that Jonathan […] The post Book Review-The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

Sometimes you have to zoom way out to see what’s right in front of you.  It’s not easy to see patterns that span centuries, but by zooming out the lens, Robert Putnam shows us a pattern that has evolved over the course of a century.  In The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago […] The post Book Review-The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

J. Maxwell Atkinson’s Discovering Suicide: Studies in the Social Organization of Sudden Death is unusually candid about the state of suicide prevention in 1978. Rather than insisting that we could predict suicide risk when we can’t, Atkinson offers comments like, “…there was something strange about the willingness of sociologists and criminologists to proceed to make […] The post Book Review-Discovering Suicide: Studies in the Social Organization of Sudden Death first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

It is always interesting to read about the right way to do things from authors that acknowledge nothing is foolproof.  The Practical Art of Suicide Assessment explains a process – one which admittedly doesn’t have empirical support.  It also acknowledges that our ability to predict short-term risk of suicide is poor.  (“Current research shows that […] The post Book Review-The Practical Art of Suicide Assessment first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

I had picked up The Suicide Lawyers some time ago but hadn’t read it.  I have friends and clients who are attorneys.  I like them.  I couldn’t really understand why I hadn’t read the book.  Then I realized that there was some sense of disconnect between the research about suicide prediction and holding accountable a […] The post Book Review-The Suicide Lawyers first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

For many people, suicide is something they’ve considered at some point in their life.  They’re likely to know someone who has died by suicide by the end of their life.  More disturbingly, they’ll rarely, if ever, talk about it.  November of the Soul: The Enigma of Suicide seeks to unravel the mystery around suicide and […] The post Book Review-November of the Soul: The Enigma of Suicide first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

Thomas Szasz was a controversial and sometimes contrarian personality who ended his own life in 2012 following a fall.  Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine lays out a set of criticisms on mainstream medicine for the way that suicide is approached.  He does not, however, constrain his attacks exclusively on medicine.  He shines a light […] The post Book Review-Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

If there was ever a manual that wasn’t called a manual, it’s Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder.  It’s the manual for dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), but it doesn’t have the word “manual” – nor any of the components of DBT – in the title.  I’d previously reviewed DBT Explained, which sorted some of […] The post Book Review-Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more

Understanding the suicidal person is at the heart of prevention.  If you don’t understand them, how can you help them?  The Suicidal Person: A New Look at a Human Phenomenon examines the suicidal person while retaining their humanity.  Instead of simplifying them to a mental disorder or relying on a formulaic, linear set of cause […] The post Book Review-The Suicidal Person: A New Look at a Human Phenomenon first appeared on Thor Projects ..read more