Suicide in Creative Women (IN: Suicide and the Creative Arts, edited by S Stack & D Lester)

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 between the two groups. There is a brief discussion of the role creativity may have played in the cases of suicide followed by a comparison of the women who died by suicide with six creative men who also died by suicide. It is concluded that depression, concern over their worth as artists, early loss, & interpersonal difficulties were factors in the suicides of both the women & the men. (15 refs.)