The message in this book is that stress can be extremely harmful to your health. Yet not all stress is bad for you. Mind Shift will show you how to change your perception of stress triggers, and how to cope better with negative stress. By applying the techniques in this book you can learn to become the master instead of the victim of stress. With knowledge, training, practice and experience you can succeed and live a healthier life. It’s your choice. Stress has been termed the ‘millennium malady’ and is an aspect of modern life that is unavoidable. 

In Mind Shift, Professor Schlebusch makes accessible to both the general reader and health-care professional important insights into the nature of stress, its impact on the health of individuals, as well as practical guidelines to its management. ‘Mind Shift covers in a comprehensive manner the basic understanding of the nature of stress, its signs, sources and management. 

The author helps readers to understand what stress is, how and why it occurs and what they can do to help themselves. It offers appropriate and effective solutions which are practical and easy to apply, and is an extremely valuable and user-friendly self-help book.’ Professor Angelo, J Lasich Head, Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal Professor Lourens Schlebusch is Head of the Department of Behavioural Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, 

Faculty of Health Sciences in Durban, South Africa. He consults in stress management, suicidology, psycho-oncology and disability as well as in behavioural medicine with a specific emphasis on traumatic stress. He has made many significant research contributions to his field and has published widely.

PSYCHOLOGICAL RECOVERY FROM CANCER
 By Lourens Schlebusch 1999, Maskew Miller Longman, Cape TownProfessor Schlebusch takes a very comprehensive look at the mental and emotional challenges that face someone who is diagnosed with cancer. His emphasis is on the mind body connection and its influence on disease progression, and how to deal with a diagnosis and disease in a practical way. 

He says, "It doesn't matter where you start; a positive change in one area will result in beneficial changes that flow through your whole life. You can choose to start with the step you find the most enjoyable." Each chapter deals with a particular topic, and at the end of each Professor Schlebusch gives a summary of the actions to be taken to give the next positive step towards awareness and being in control of your life. 

The first 8 chapters of this information-filled book deal with what cancer is, and the mind body connection. He gives a clear overview of the effects of stress, personality, mind and psychology on well being, particularly in the case of cancer. "Your emotions are a bridge between your mind and your body, and you want to strengthen that bridge.' is the clear message, with suggestions of what to do to begin the process.

 The rest of the book is devoted to self-help techniques and helpful hints, which can be employed to deal with emotions, cope with symptoms and side effects, and deal with illness. Self-awareness, breathing and relaxation exercises, mental imagery and meditation are some of the tools suggested with practical advice on how to get started. 

What you will have by the end of the book is a framework for your own healing journey, with many suggestions to follow. This book is not light reading, it requires concentration, followed by commitment, to make it work in your life. It is also a valuable reference guide for health professionals and the families of those with cancer.

The focus of the book is cancer, but the principles apply to a broad range of illnesses. This approach will also benefit those who are well, and we would do well to take the professors' advice to heart, not only in times of crisis "So, don't weep or give up hope. Look again my friend, even if you glance for just a moment. You'll see, your pain is not cast in stone, and you will never walk alone."  

Foreword
THIS FIRST COMPREHENSIVE volume on suicide and suicide prevention published in South Africa is a milestone in the development of the field of suicide research and prevention, which is now becoming increasingly acknowledged for its importance, not only in South Africa but in many countries throughout the world. The enormity of the problem of suicide calls for action, not only from health-care workers and other professional helpers, but from people in all sectors of society. Politicians and other decision-makers need to realise that the problem of suicide can be effectively combated and that limited resources are best utilised when co-ordinated through a national strategy for suicide prevention. Above all, there is a need for increased public awareness of what everyone both can and should do to help. To state it simply: the prevention of suicide is everybody’s business! There is a great need for more knowledge in order to support new initiatives in suicide prevention. Even though there is much to be learnt from research and prevention experiences from abroad, every country needs to make its own analyses of the problem and find solutions that are adapted to local challenges and available resources. This volume brings an abundance of information on epidemiological data, risk factors and high-risk populations, associations and causative mechanisms. On the basis of these facts, some of which are quite unique to South Africa, follows a presentation of a series of suicide preventive strategies and methods adapted to local conditions and challenges. This knowledge can only be accumulated through hard work and dedicated efforts in suicide research over many years. With this volume, Professor Lourens Schlebusch, an internationally renowned suicide researcher actively involved in suicide prevention nationally and internationally for many years, has provided an invaluable toolbox for all those who work to combat suicide. Filled as it is with sober information on suicide and its causes, it will reduce the myths, taboos and social stigma still associated with suicide. The many practical and clinical approaches described will be highly welcome to clinicians and professional helpers as well as to the informed and interested general readership. This volume gives a full account of the many destructive implications of suicide in society. We must, however, never forget that the most profound and tragic consequences concern the individual and his or her family. In this book, Professor Schlebusch has managed to find a balance between, on the one hand, the scholarly and accurate description of suicidal behaviour that is needed to get to grips with the magnitude and severity of suicide as a public health problem and, on the other hand, a portrayal of the tragedy that suicide imposes on the individual person. 

Lars Mehlum MDProfessor of Psychiatry and Suicidology and Director of the Suicide Research and Prevention Unit, University of Oslo President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention