ABSTRACT
EDlTORlALABSTRACT: The purpose oj this chapter is to introduce the reader to issues and interventions connected with the topic oj adolescent suicide and the prevention qf adolescent suicide. The developmental problems qf adolescence, personality, and behavioral disorders, dy~unctional relationships and societal provocations and pending catastrophes are overviewed to provide the reader with an understanding qf the adolescent suicide problem in the United States. Predicting adolescent suicide is addressed through discussion qf the myths connected with adolescent suicide, signs and symptoms and a presentation qf the projile qf the suicidal adolescent. Prevention, crisis management, postvention, and approaches to counseling/therapy are also overviewed to provide the reader with a point qf departurejor thejocusedjollow-up chapters qfthis book. Matt Reiser had a date with Cheryl Burress last Tuesday night in Bergenfield, N.J., near New York city, but at 6:30 Cheryl called to cancel. 'We can't get together tonight," she told Reiser. 'We're going to visit Joe." Reiser thought he knew what she meant. Joe Major, a friend of Cheryl's. had fallen 200 feet to his death off the Palisades cliffs along the Hudson River last September in what police conSidered an alcohol-related accident. and Reiser figured that Cheryl was planning to visit Major's grave that night, as she had many times before. Reiser was wrong.
