Globally, suicides account for a significant number of premature deaths every year. Traditional approaches to suicide research and prevention are not working for everyone, but why is this? And what can be done about it?

In Critical Suicidology, a team of international scholars, practitioners, and people directly affected by suicide argue that the field of suicidology has become too focused on the biomedical paradigm: a model that pathologizes distress and obscures the social, political, and historical contexts that contribute to human suffering. The authors introduce the perspectives of those who have direct personal knowledge of suicide and suicidal behaviour and propose alternative approaches to suicide prevention that are creative, socially just, and culturally responsive. In the right hands, this book could save lives.

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Jennifer White is the director and an associate professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria, Canada. She co-edited (with Alan Pence) the book Child and Youth Care: Critical Perspectives on Pedagogy, Practice, and Policy. She has written numerous articles, reports, and practice guidelines for practitioners on the topic of youth suicide prevention. In 2004, she received the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention Service Award in recognition for her leadership and contributions to the practice of youth suicide prevention.

Ian Marsh is a senior lecturer and researcher at Canterbury Christ Church University in England, the academic lead for the Kent and Medway Suicide Prevention Group, and a volunteer for the Samaritans. He is also the author of Suicide: Foucault, History and Truth. For many years, Marsh has facilitated suicide awareness and prevention training in a number of settings, including prisons, schools, and mental health units.

Michael J. Kral is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Wayne State University, Detroit, a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and a fellow of the American Psychological Association. Kral has co-edited three books. He researches in the area of Indigenous suicide and suicide prevention, youth resilience, culture change, and kinship, and theory and method in psychology and allied disciplines.

Jonathan Morris is a sessional instructor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria, Canada. Morris’s research has focused on using poststructural and narrative ideas in an up-close analysis of youth suicide-prevention practice. More recently, in his work focused on social policy and mental health, he has infused narrative practices into policy making spaces in an effort to call attention to the dominant discursive frames that underpin current policy directions.

Contributors: Yvonne Bergmans, Rob Cover, Michael Dineen, Simone Fullagar, Joseph P. Gone, Heidi Hjelmeland, Lori Idlout, Katrina Jaworski, Denise Johnson, David Newman, Wendy O’Brien, Vikki Reynolds, Andrea Rowe, Marnie Sather, Daniel Scott, and Lisa M. Wexler