"Ellenhorn has written a compelling, multi-layered, and complex text. Its overriding strength is its erudition. Unlike other texts on 'how to treat…,' whatever the disorder may be, Ellenhorn takes the reader through the theoretical, philosophical, empirical, and clinical issues involved in the paradox of treating the parasuicidal patient within the present system. His arguments for change must engender in the reader a goal of becoming part of the change. For many of us, we have been, over the years, part of the problem."
--From the Foreword by Arthur Freeman, EdD, ABPP
"Ross Ellenhorn has written a brilliant 'social psychology of social psychology' in which he traces the phenomena of 'patient careerism' and 'parasuicidality' as inherently linked to interactions between clients and clinicians. Utilizing a range of data covering empirical social science and clinical studies, as well as existential and epistemological insights drawn from the Humanities, he successfully dismantles and exposes the futility of the contemporary medical model. In an engaging and refreshing prose, Ross Ellenhorn courageously offers a tried and successfully utilized practical solution for treating these phenomena. His is the voice of Rollo May, Erich Fromm, Erving Goffman, C. Wright Mills, and other ghosts of humanist psychology and sociology past. This is a must read for students of social psychology, sociology, and social science practitioners generally. "
--Glenn A. Goodwin, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College
(Adjunct) Professor of Sociology, University of La Verne
"'Oh, my God, I feel suicidal.' How many times has the great majority of us uttered those words, or overheard them from someone else? No worries, we mutter to ourselves, the phrase is only a figure of speech. Only a figure of speech: how could an act as final as suicide insinuate itself into the language as nothing more than a fleeting figure of speech? Suicide, we all recognize, stands out as a physical act, but it often makes its presence felt first as a speech act. Any speech, even a figure of speech, demands attention. So, when someone - anyone - utters those words, I want Ross Ellenhorn to be listening. He has his ears pitched differently from the rest of us: he hears in those words a plea for help, but not in the ordinary way. For some in the profession, help masquerades as just another four-letter word. Not for Ellenhorn: he goes after agency. For him, I feel suicidal reveals a person's desire for enough power to take on this vast and rugged world. It means I want to possess the fullest measure of agency - strength: of conviction, of will, of temperament. You don't have to be a professional to read this book. You just have to be willing to shake your old beliefs - about intervention, about therapy, about the medical model itself. Go ahead: It may just save your life. Or someone else's."
--Barry Sanders, PhD, Professor, History of Ideas, Pitzer College, co-author of Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man’s Land, 1619-2000, and author of A is for Ox: The Collapse of Literacy and the Rise of Violence in an Electronic Age
From the Back Cover
"""This book describes parasuicidality from a different perspective, yet still within the framework of DBT. These concepts will be helpful to clinicians, who often spend much of their time dealing with these troubling behaviors?.This book is well worth the price and the reader will not be disappointed."" Score: 94, 4 stars
--Doody's
""Ross Ellenhorn brings a fresh, new look at what has been called parasuicidality. Rather seeing it solely as a medicalized symptom of mental disorder, he incisively shows how threats of suicide emerge from the social context and can be better understood and treated within a framework of social relationships. This well documented and clearly written book is must reading for anyone interested in better understanding and dealing with parasuicidality. ""
""This book deals with the issue of parasuicidality using a dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) approach, but posits that clinical interactions aid and abet that specific behavior. It presents both theoretical and pragmatic ideas of how to deal wi th patients who often pose the greatest challenge to clinicians. "" Gary B Kaniuk, Psy.D. (Cermak Health Services)
--Peter Conrad, Harry Coplan Professor of Social Sciences, Brandeis University, and author of The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Medical Disorders
In this unique and groundbreaking book, Dr. Ellenhorn offers a very different approach to assisting parasuicidal patients with their problems, an approach that avoids medicalized interactions while enhancing authentic encounters with patients. He makes extensive use of vignettes to demonstrate various types of scenarios between clinicians and patients. A number of other effective techniques are discussed, including:
- Ways to enhance team treatment planning through a brainstorming process called ""The Hourglass""
- Alternative methods of documenting treatment that serves to protect clinicians from concerns about liability
- Helping patients focus on life goals and changing themselves through clinician-patient interactions
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