Parents, teachers, friends, and even many clinicians are both horrified and mystified upon discovering teenagers who intentionally cut, burn, and otherwise inflict pain upon themselves. Often causing permanent and extensive scarring, as well as infections, cutting is increasingly prevalent among today's youth. As many as 1 in 100 adolescents report cutting themselves, representing a growing epidemic of scarred and tormented youths, as we see in this revealing work. As author Plante discusses here, the threat of suicide must always be carefully evaluated, although the majority of cutters...

In any given year, 10 percent of the population - or about 21 million people - suffers from a depressive disorder. Most do not seek professional help although the great majority could find relief with treatment. And that not only causes hundreds of thousands of dollars in economic costs annually from work slowdown and accidents to illnesses and suicides, the wider picture is that depression hurts not only the person at issue, but millions more who are family members or other loved ones. The problem has become so pervasive yet often ignored that a major pharmaceutical company has launched...

Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: A Decade of Crisis, 2002-2012 is a thoughtful, multidisciplinary commentary. Beginning when the scandal first broke in Boston in 2002, this first-of-its-kind work offers a wide range of opinion, both positive and negative, on what has been done in the ensuing ten years to stop and prevent such abuse.

Through the contributions here, readers can delve into the world of the church hierarchy and into the minds of abusive priests and their victims. The book presents the views of leading academics and psychologists, but also allows the...