Suicide is a serious public health problem worldwide, accounting for more loss of life annually than all forms of war and interpersonal violence combined. Despite this fact, suicide remains a poorly understood problem, and progress in understanding suicidal behavior around the globe has been slow. This book represents a major advance in our understanding by reporting the results of the largest, most representative study of suicidal behaviors conducted to date the WHO World Mental Health Survey Initiative, interviewing more than 100,000 people from 22 countries on 6 continents. Previously...

Medically unexplained somatic symptoms are problematic in psychiatry, primary care settings, and other clinical areas. The burden they impose on health-care systems constitutes a significant public health problem. At the international symposium "Rethinking Somatoform Disorders," this problem was addressed by specialists working in somatoform disorders, psychiatric nosology, epidemiology, and biological and cross-cultural psychiatry. The meeting was the third of the Keio University International Symposia for Life Sciences and Medicine, in collaboration with the World Health Organization and...