Resource Tag: EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE

This book presents the biographies of 32 individuals, some more famous than others, who died by suicide. The focus is on those aspects of their lives which might have influenced their choice to die by suicide. The concluding chapter reviews what might be learned about suicide through the study of these cases.

This edited book includes 22 chapters on suicide & the creative arts. Part 1 examines suicide in painting & the traditional visual arts. Part 2 is on the depiction of suicide in the movies. Suicide in literature is discussed in Part 3. Part 4 looks at understanding suicide through the arts & Part 5 is […]

This chapter explores the question of whether the suicides of creative women were because they were women, because they were creative, or because they were creative women. The lives of six creative women who died by suicide are compared to six creative women who died from natural causes to see if clear differences are apparent […]

In this concluding chapter, Stack & Lester discuss selected points of departure for research that would fill important gaps in the knowledge base. Included in their survey are: the neglect of non-Western art, the neglect of major art forms like film, photography, & music, & the weighting of positive versus negative definitions in images. The […]

The research design of this project was shaped by the funders who requested the replication of the Media Monitoring Project done by Pirkis et al (2001). This report provides a baseline descriptive account of the extent & nature of reporting of suicide by the New Zealand news media. It also assesses the alignment of news […]

The impact on suicides following the suicide of a famous Hong Kong pop singer was examined. Extensive & often dramatic media coverage resulted. The number of suicides in 2003 before & after the death of the celebrity were compared to the same period in 1998-2002. The case files & suicide notes of people who died […]

This chapter begins with brief descriptions of the suicides of Ernest Hemingway & Sylvia Plath in order to introduce the issues that follow. The authors then seek to clarify the meaning of suicide & life-threatening behaviour, & sketch some common patterns in this behaviour. Next, they describe efforts to explain suicidal behaviour or, more precisely, […]

Since the early 1950s, ritual suicide was a central element in the writing of Yukio Mishima. This article offers a psychological analysis of how Mishima’s concepts of the River of Body and the River of Action inevitably combined, uniting fantasy & reality & leading to his suicide. (54 refs.)

The central theme of this presentation was delineating a therapeutic strategy for use with the crisis characteristic of the performance-dependent client. Performance-dependency is defined as a narrowly limited area of functioning on which self-esteem is based to the exclusion of most other sources of self-validation. The task of the crisis therapist is to defuse the […]

The impact of media reporting of a male television celebrity on suicides in Taiwan was investigated. All 10,945 suicides during 2003-2005 were included in the study. A Poisson time series autoregression analysis was conducted to examine whether there was an increase in suicides during the 4-week period after extensive media reporting. After controlling for seasonal […]

This article explores the relationship between popular music & the formation of values among American teenagers. (6 notes, 14 refs.)

This paper reports on the effect of the suicide of a famous entertainment celebrity in Hong Kong on suicide thoughts in the community. A population-based survey was conducted between December 2003-July 2004. Respondents were asked about their suicide ideation, psychological well being, life events, & whether or not they had been affected by celebrity suicide. […]

Following van Gogh’s death in 1890, numerous physicians have offered diagnostic opinions regarding his still unverified illness. In this article, it is hypothesized van Gogh’s suicide may have been precipitated by plumbism, the exposure to lead. The symptoms of plumbism mimic other illnesses & its destructive effects are not always recognized. (141 refs.)

In June 1835 the death by suicide of the famed French painter, Antoine-Jean Gros, was announced. At the time, Gros’s suicide was thought to be related to an incurable depression brought on by a disastrous showing at the annual Salon a few months earlier. The author of this article argues Gros’s inner torments & eventual […]

This book addresses the author’s belief in the wilfulness suicide entails. She argues suicide is a meaningful gesture holding more than private significance, it is a public statement of autonomy. The first 3 essays survey cultural, intellectual, & historical attitudes that have deprived the act of suicide of its significance. Other essays explore the political […]

This essay analyses some medieval images representing the Biblical story of Judas’ suicide. From a historian’s viewpoint, those images must be seen in the context of a scholastic discourse on mortal sins & human responsibility. A central aspect of the argument presented in this paper is the hanging tree as a number of pictures indicate […]

This paper investigates philosophically the Japanese samurai notion & activity of seppuku, the traditional method of suicide among the warrior class. Seppuku follows prolonged physical, mental & social preparation, a period the author equates to physical training. The suicide of Yukio Mishima is discussed in this context. (10 refs.)

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Originally published in Counseling & Guidance Newsletter, v.5, no.1, (Winter 1995).