The paper is a bibliography of the relationship between author, David James Fisher, & Bruno Bettleheim. Becoming very close to Bettleheim in his last years, the author describes Bettleheim’s suicide as an end to the torment, loneliness, & sense of futility about his present & future. Suicide was Bettleheim’s way of refusing to fall helpless, his refusal to submit to a meaningless, vegetative life. Taking his life allowed him to escape from the despair & emptiness that prevaded his existence.