Ackerman, Diane - A Slender Thread: Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis

[oyceter]

Diane Ackerman recounts her experience as a counselor for a suicide and crisis hotline, along with various musings on the nature of the human animal and how our states of crisis are somewhat reminiscent to animal states of crisis.

I picked this up mostly to see what sort of advice counselors gave to the callers; from a very practical standpoint, I felt as though I should see how the professionals did it. Ackerman doesn't so much focus on this; the book is more of a meditation on crisis and suicide, along with a chronicle of her own feelings of helplessness and weariness, and also of hope. I wasn't quite as impressed with her meditations on nature as I was in her A Natural History of the Senses, although I did very much appreciate the speculation on drunk squirrels and roadkill.

Er, I can't remember what it had to do with suicide hotlines, but come on! Drunk squirrels!

I am easily amused.

Anyhow, I didn't get as much practical advice as I wanted, but I liked the look behind the scenes and the feel that all these anonymous people out there suffering had somewhere to turn to.

Comments

[oyceter]

Yeah, I really liked the behind the scenes look! I liked the squirrels too, though I didn't quite see the connection that she did between squirrels in crisis and people ;).