Suicidal Thoughts: Essays on Self-Determined Death

by Max Malikow, A Alvarez, Olive Ann Burns, Sue Chance M.D., Earl A. Grollman

Overview

Suicidal Thoughts is a compilation of some of the most moving and insightful writing accomplished on the topic of suicide. It presents the thoughts and experiences of fifteen writers who have contemplated suicide-some on a professional level, others on a personal level, and a few, both personally and professionally. Through this collection, the reader is able to bear witness to the struggle between life and death and to the devastating aftermath of suicide. Suicidal Thoughts provides readers with a better understanding of the reasons why some individuals give serious consideration to killing themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761841180
Publisher:	Hamilton Books
Publication date:	10/20/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	70
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Walker Percy wrote several books, many of them bestsellers, and is considered one of the greatest American writers of our time. His books include The Moviegoer and Love in the Ruins.

Judith Viorst was born and raised in New Jersey. She received a B.A. in history from Rutgers University, and in 1981, after six years of study, she graduated from the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.

Mrs. Viorst is the author of eight collections of poems for adults: The Village Square; It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty and Other Tragedies of Married Life; People and Other Aggravations; How Did I Get to Be Forty and Other Atrocities; When Did I Stop Being Twenty and Other Injustices; Forever Fifty and Other Negotiations; Suddenly Sixty and Other Shocks of Later Life; and I'm Too Young to Be Seventy and Other Delusions. She has also written You're Officially a Grown-up: The Graduate's Guide to Freedom, Responsibility, Happiness and Personal Hygiene; a novel, Murdering Mr. Monti; and six nonfiction books: Yes, Married; Love & Guilt & The Meaning of Life, Etc.; Necessary Losses, which was on The New York Times bestseller list for almost two years; its companion volume, Imperfect Control; Grown-up Marriage; and Alexander and the Wonderful, Marvelous, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days: An Almost Completely Honest Account of What Happened to Our Family When Our Youngest Son, His Wife, Their Baby, Their Toddler, and Their Five-Year-Old Came to Live with Us for Three Months. In addition, she wrote a column in Redbook for over twenty-five years.

Mrs. Viorst is the author of eighteen books for children: Sunday Morning; I'll Fix Anthony; Try It Again, Sam; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; The Tenth Good Thing About Barney; My Mama Says There Aren't Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, Monsters, Fiends, Goblins, or Things; Rosie and Michael; Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday; If I Were In Charge of the World and Other Worries; The Good-bye Book; Earrings!; The Alphabet from Z to A; Sad Underwear and Other Complications; Alexander, Who's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move; Absolutely, Positively Alexander, a collection of the three Alexander stories; Super-Completely and Totally the Messiest; Just in Case; and Nobody Here But Me.

Many of her books, for adults as well as for children, have been published abroad. Several of her children's books have been made into short films.

Mrs. Viorst lectures widely on a variety of topics, ranging from loss and growth to children's literature and the subject of control. Her poetry has been read in performance by Anne Bancroft, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, and Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach. Her musical, Love & Shrimp, starring Eileen Barnett, Bonnie Franklin, and Mariette Hartley, has been performed in Los Angeles, New York, and other cities. A musical version of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, with the play and lyrics written by Mrs. Viorst and music by Shelly Markham, was commissioned by and performed at the Kennedy Center and now appears at theaters all over the country. A second children's musical, Alexander, Who's Not, Not, Not, Not, Not, Not Going to Move, also with play and lyrics by Mrs. Viorst and music by Shelly Markham, was commissioned by and performed at the Kennedy Center and is currently touring the country.

Mrs. Viorst resides in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Milton, who is the author of several critically acclaimed political books. They have three sons, Anthony, Nicholas, and Alexander, and seven grandchildren.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 I. Sylvia Plath: A Miscalculation? (A. Alvarez) A brilliant poet ends her life in an apparent suicide. In this excerpt from The Savage God, A. Alvarez expresses why he doubts that it was a suicide.
Chapter 2 II. Uncle Camp's Suicide (Olive Ann Burns) A man convinced of his unworthiness to live commits suicide. From the 1984 bestseller Cold Sassy Tree.
Chapter 3 III. A Survivor's Benediction (Sue Chance, M.D.) A psychiatrist reflects on her son's suicide.
Chapter 4 IV. A Suicide Occurs - The Abuse of Religion (Rabbi Earl A. Grollman, D.D.) A prolific writer on the subject of bereavement provides a history of philosophical and religious thought on the topic of suicide.
Chapter 5 V. A Philosopher Almost Commits Suicide (Eric Hoffer)One of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers explains his decision to kill himself and why he changed his mind.
Chapter 6 VI. The Pact (Kay Jamison, Ph.D.) A brilliant, suicidal psychologist makes an agreement with an equally brilliant, suicidal friend.
Chapter 7 VII. A Psychiatrist's Son Commits Suicide (Gordon Livingston, M.D.) In an excerpt from Too Old Too Soon, Too Smart Too Late Dr. Livingston shares his thoughts in the wake of his son's suicide.
Chapter 8 VIII. Altruistic Suicide (Max Malikow, Th.D.) An Air Force pilot, a pregnant woman with cancer, and four clergymen choose to die for the sake of others.
Chapter 9 IX. The Significance of How People Kill Themselves (Karl Menninger, M.D.) In his classic, Man Against Himself, Dr. Menninger addresses the meaning of the methods employed by those who accomplish their suicide.
Chapter 10 X. Professor Bridgman's Suicide (Sherwin Nuland, M.D.) A Harvard professor and Nobel Prize winner decides to end his life.
Chapter 11 XI. Suicide as a Cure for Depression (Walker Percy, M.D.) A celebrated author proposes the serious contemplation of suicide as an effective treatment for depression.
Chapter 12 XII. Getting a Second Wind (Rick Reilly) Grieving parents make a decision that saves a life and enriches their's.
Chapter 13 XIII. A Suicidologist's Reflections (Edwin Shneidman, Ph.D.) After forty years of research and practice an eminent psychologist offers his understanding of why people kill themselves.
Chapter 14 XIV. Suicide as Psychache (Edwin Shneidman, Ph.D.)Dr. Shneidman elaborates on the term he coined as part of his explanation that suicide has to do with an individual's threshold for enduring pain in the mind.
Chapter 15 XV. I Want to Die (Rod Steiger) An Academy Award winning actor's dramatic reading of his thoughts when suffering from a debilitating clinical depression.
Chapter 16 XVI. I'm Dying (William Styron) One of this generation's most gifted and accomplished authors describes the downward spiral that nearly ended with his suicide.
Chapter 17 XVII. In Control of Our Death (Judith Viorst) A renown psychologist fails to keep a luncheon date when he commits suicide.

Editorial Reviews

This is a set of essays that may not appeal to all readers, but which readers will nonetheless feel compelled to finish. Suicidal Thoughts gives the reader much about which to think.

Peter M. Gutierrez Ph. D.

It is a testimony to Max Malikow's long devotion to understanding suicide, as well as his editorial acumen, that this book grabs our hearts for both the questions it makes us consider and the people it helps us to understand.

Maria DiTullio Ed.D

This is a useful, perhaps unique resource, compact and provocative like a good poem.

Metapsychology Online

It is a testimony to Max Malikow's long devotion to understanding suicide, as well as his editorial acumen, that this book grabs our hearts for both the questions it makes us consider and the people it helps us to understand.--Maria DiTullio Ed.D, associate professor of psychology, Le Moyne College

This is a set of essays that may not appeal to all readers, but which readers will nonetheless feel compelled to finish. Suicidal Thoughts gives the reader much about which to think.--Peter M. Gutierrez Ph. D., president, American Association of Suicidology

This is a useful, perhaps unique resource, compact and provocative like a good poem.--Metapsychology Online, December 1, 2009

From the Publisher

This is a useful, perhaps unique resource, compact and provocative like a good poem.

Metapsychology Online Reviews

This is a set of essays that may not appeal to all readers, but which readers will nonetheless feel compelled to finish. Suicidal Thoughts gives the reader much about which to think.

Peter M.Gutierrez

It is a testimony to Max Malikow's long devotion to understanding suicide, as well as his editorial acumen, that this book grabs our hearts for both the questions it makes us consider and the people it helps us to understand.

Maria DiTullio