The Study of Suicidal Lives

David Lester, PhD Center for the Study of Suicide, Blackwood, NJ

ABSTRACT: Thirty suicides about whom book-length biographies have been written were examined in the framework of the ten statements formulated by Leenaars for each of his ten theories of suicide. Suicides who fit well with particular theories were identified, and the theories compared both for their success in describing the suicides and for their similarity with one another.

The study of lives has interested scholars of many disciplines, but particularly psychologists and psychohistorians. Various approaches to the study of lives have been proposed, for example White (1963), and some personality theorists have undertaken detailed studies of one individual, for example Allport’s (1965) study of Jenny and Erikson’s (1958) study of Martin Luther.

From time to time, biographies of well-known individuals who have committed suicide appear, such as Bell’s (1972) biography of Virginia Woolf, the English writer who drowned herself in 1941. Occasionally a psychologist will analyze a particular suicide for the psychodynamics behind the act, such as Shneidman’s (1982) analysis of Cesare Pavese’s suicide. However, no one has identified a method for analyzing and comparing the suicidal lives of a group of suicides from biographical data.

In contrast, when it has been possible to administer standardized interviews and psychological/psychiatric questionnaires to samples of attempted or completed suicides, then quantitative research on suicide is easily generated, as in Beck, Kovacs, and Weissman’s studies on a sample of over 400 attempted suicides admitted to a general hospital (1975). Beck et al. found that a questionnaire measure of hopelessness was a stronger correlate of suicidal intent in the attempt than was a questionnaire measure of depression. In such a report, of course, we

Reprint requests may be sent to the author at the Center for the Study of Suicide, 5 Stonegate Court (RR41), Blackwood, NJ 08012.

164 Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, Vol. 21(2), Summer 1991

0 1991 The American Association of Suicidology

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have no sense of the lifestyle and life course of any of the individual suicides.

The present paper proposes and illustrates how we might approach the study of suicidal lives. For this purpose, the biographies of 30 people who killed themselves were read and a synopsis of each made. A method for analyzing these lives was then identified. The aims in this paper are, therefore, twofold (1) The paper proposes a way of studying suicidal lives, and (2) it examines the usefulness of ten theories of suicide in describing suicidal individuals and compares their similarities to one another in this task.

For this task, the recent work of Leenaars (1988) on the analysis of suicide-note content was used. Leenaars took ten theories of suicide, proposed by individuals such as Freud and Shneidman, and identified for each theorist ten statements that embodied the theory of suicide. Leenaars identified which of the 100 statements occurred with a high frequency in a sample of genuine suicide notes, and also which were identified more often in genuine notes as compared to simulated notes written by nonsuicidal people thinking they were about to kill themselves.

Each of the 30 suicides was examined in the light of these 100 state- ments. Each life and suicidal death was categorized for whether each statement was on the whole true or on the whole not true.

This methodology led to several problems. First, it relies on Leenaars’ interpretation of each of the theorists. The present author would not necessarily concur with Leenaars’ view of the theories. However, Lee- naars put a great deal of effort into the derivation of the statements, and he has utilized these statements in a large number of studies. Thus, it was decided to use his statements, despite the fact that there may be disagreement over some of his interpretations.

A second problem was that many of the statements are ambiguous. For example, some have two parts, one of which may be true for a suicidal life while the other may not be true. For example, sentence ten for George Kelly is “The person communicates that he is killing himself because he sees no alternative to this action and he sees the suicide as giving him some meaning in his life” (p. 165). It is preferable to have items that express only one idea than to have items with a combination of ideas. The latter raise judgment calls as to which part of the statement is more important in rating the total item as true or not true.

Other items lack an operational criterion. For example, sentence eight for Ludwig Binswanger is “The person communicates that his suicide is an act undertaken to isolate his life, his problems and/or his dread from himself” (p. 80). This idea was unidentifiable in any of the suicidal lives examined by the present author due to a lack of operational criteria.

166 SUICIDE AND LIFE-THREATENING BEHAVIOR

Finally, of course, the statements were derived for the purpose of analyzing suicide-note content and not suicidal lives. This introduces fiurther problems in applying the sentences to suicidal lives.

In Leenaars’ studies, he used two or more judges to rate each suicide note so that he could ascertain the extent of interjudge reliability in making judgments. In the present study it was not possible to find a second judge willing to read all 30 biographies, make 20-page summaries of each life, and then rate each life on 100 statements. Thus, the present study reports data from just one judge.

The Sample

The sample of 30 suicides is based on available biographies for well- known suicides (or suicides of sufficient interest to warrant a book ). The suicide had to have a book-length biography (rather than merely articles) in order to ensure a reasonably full account of his or her life. 13iographies were obtained by using lists of famous suicides (for example, from Lester, Sell, & Sell, 1980) and searching for books on these in- dividuals. Thirty suicides were identified.

The theorists used by Leenaars and used in the present study, were: Adler, Binswanger, Freud, Jung, Kelly, Menninger, Murray, Shneidman, Sullivan and Zilboorg. For a listing of the 100 statements used, see Leenaars (1988).

A list of the suicides included in the sample is shown in Appendix .A, together with biographies consulted for information.

Results

Each theorist was characterized by ten sentences, and thus each suicide could receive a score of up to ten for each theorist, depending on how many of the ten sentences characterized the suicide’s life. Table 1 shows which suicides obtained high scores on which theorists.

It can be seen that eight of the ten theorists were found to characterize at least one of the suicides well. The exceptions were Freud and Kelly. Shneidman’s theory appeared to characterize many of the suicidal lives well. An alternative way of examining this question is to look at the average score of each theorist over the 30 suicides, and the means are shown in Table 2. Again, Shneidman was the most applicable theorist, with Jung and Sullivan in second place.

Looking at the suicides, it is interesting that Sylvia Plath’s life was characterized well by several theorists (Jung, Menninger, Murray, Shneidman, Sullivan, and Zilboorg). On the other hand, several suicides were not characterized well by any of the theories: Craig Badialis, Povl

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TABLE 1. The Most Well-Explained Suicides for Each Theorist

~~

Adler

Binswanger Freud Jung

Kelly Menninger

Murray

Shneidman

Suicides with a score of 9 8 7

Plath

Plath White

Hemingway

Plath -

van Gogh

Crane Hemingway Rothko

Sullivan Halliwell -

Zilboorg

Berryman Lindsay Zweig

Monroe Tausk Teasdale van Gogh

Plath van Gogh Clark Halliwell White Berryman Forrestal Garland Halliwell Lockridge London Teasdale Prinze Zweig Crane Plath Rothko Teasdale van Gogh White Plath

-

-

Bang-Jensen, Sigmund Freud, Tom Heggen, Christopher Jens, Paul Kammerer, Yukio Mishima, 0. H. Mowrer, Cesare Pavese, Gabrielle Russier, and yirginia Woolf. There are several characteristics of this group. First, it includes the majority of the teenagers (Badialis and Jens), the non-Americans (Bang-Jensen, Freud, Kammerer, Mishima, Pavese, Russier, and Woolf), and the clearly psychotic (Jens [schizo- phrenia] and Woolf [affective disorder]). This suggests that the theories of suicide used in this study may not apply well to these particular groups.

In addition, several of those whose biographies were not full descrip- tions of the life, but rather concentrated on certain aspects, such as Bang-Jensen and Russier, were poorly characterized by the theories.

168 SUICIDE AND LIFE-THREATENING BEHAVIOR

TABLE 2. Results of the Factor Analysisa

Adler Binswanger Freud Jung Kelly Menninger Murray Shneidman Sullivan Zilboorg

Factor I

0.06 0.13 0.57* 0.65* 0.42* 0.77* 0.66* 0.79* 0.73* 0.70*

I1

0.17

0.58* 0.03

0.35 0.51*

-0.10 0.32 0.04

-0.85*

-0.15

I11

0.90* -0.06

0.24 -0.02

0.22 -0.32

0.12 -0.01

0.21 0.33

Overall mean (SD)

4.3 1.7 4.7 1.3 1.6 1.5 5.1 1.4 2.8 0.9 4.1 1.2 4.7 1.7 6.4 1.4 5.1 1.9 3.6 1.3

*Eliminating the four equivocal deaths did not markedly change the pattern of results. * A high loading (greater than 0.40).

Interestingly, Freud’s suicide was not characterized well by the the- ories, including his own. Freud had arranged for his physician to ad- minister a lethal dose of morphine to him when his cancer became intolerable. Freud’s suicide was closest to fitting criteria for a rational suicide, and so we may infer that rational suicide is not well characterized by the theories.

How similar are the theories? This question can be answered by a factor-analysis that examines how closely associated the theorists’ scores are over the 30 suicides. The results of a factor analysis using SPSSX (with a principal components extraction and a varimax rotation) are sh.own in Table 2. It can be seen that eight of the theories were associated: The higher the score a suicide received on one of the theories, the higher was his or her score on the others. Binswanger’s theory was quite different from these eight and almost antithetical to those of Freud and Murray. Adler’s theory, also, was quite different from the associated eight.

A list of the statements that were found to characterize at least two- thirds of the sample (the same criteria used by Leenaars in his study of suicide notes) may be found in Appendix B.

Discussion

The present study has shown that the statements derived by Leenaars from ten major theorists of suicide, which were developed for the purpose of making a content analysis of suicide notes, may also be usefully

LESTER 169

applied to the analysis of the lives of suicides. For example, the present study has indicated that the life and suicide of Sylvia Plath fits well with Murray’s theory of suicide, while the life and suicide of Kenneth Halliwell fits well with Sullivan’s theory of suicide.

The present study has also shown one way in which the different theories of suicides may be compared, namely by examining how a sample of suicidal lives is described by the set of theories. The present analysis has suggested that both Adler’s and Binswanger’s theories of suicide focus on very different elements than those of the other eight theorists under consideration.

Some of the theories were quite successful in describing the suicides, in particular, Shneidman, Jung, and Sullivan. Others fared less well, especially Freud and Kelly. However, eight of the ten theories examined did apply reasonably well to at least one of the 30 suicides considered in this paper.

As one reviewer pointed out, the present analysis of biographies, the majority of which were not written by psychologists, will favor theories that include statements that have little specificity. Furthermore, theories that stress the importance of unconscious factors will not be favored since the material analyzed is not best for detecting unconscious pro- cesses. It is noteworthy that none of the protocol sentences involving early experiences predisposing a person to suicide were as common as those pertaining to the current suicidal state (see Appendix B).

Thus, the results of this paper do not mean that some theories are wrong or of little use, only that they did not do well in describing these particular 30 suicides based on biographies. They may have utility for describing other suicides and for other purposes, such as planning therapeutic interventions.

It is hoped that the present study will stimulate others to consider alternative ways of describing and categorizing the lives of suicidal people.

Appendix A A List of the Suicides and Biographers

Craig Badialis, American teenager; Asinoff (1971) Povl Bang-Jensen, Danish diplomat; Copp and Peck (1961) John Berryman, American poet; Haffenden (1982) Bruce Clark, American baseball player; Berkow and Olderman (1985) Hart Crane, American poet; Unterecker (1969) James Forrestal, American politician; Rogow (1963) Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician; Gay (1988) Judy Garland, American film star; Frank (1975)

1'70 SUICIDE AND LIFE-THREATENING BEHAVIOR

Kenneth Halliwell, lover of English playwright Joe Orton; Lahr (1978) Tom Heggen, American writer; Leggett (1974) Elrnest Hemingway, American writer; Meyers (1985) Christopher Jens, American young adult; Jens (1987) Paul Kammerer, Austrian biologist; Koestler (1971) Vachel Lindsay, American poet; Ruggles (1959) Ross Lockridge, American writer; Leggett (1974) Jack London, American writer; Sinclair (1977) Yukio Mishima, Japanese writer; Stokes (1974) Marilyn Monroe, American film star; Guiles (1984) 0. H. Mowrer, American psychologist; Mowrer (1983) Cesare Pavese, Italian writer; Lajolo (1983) Sylvia Plath, American writer; Butscher (1976) Freddie Prinze, American comedian; Pruetzel (1978) Mark Rothko, American painter; Seldes (1978) Gabrielle Russier, French teacher; Gallant (1971) Victor Tausk, Yugoslavian psychoanalyst; Eissler (1983) Sara Teasdale, American poet; Drake (1979) Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter; Honour (1967) Jody White, American teenager; White-Bowden (1985) Virginia Woolf, English writer; Bell (1972) Stephan Zweig, Austrian writer; Allday (1972)

Some of these deaths have been claimed as homicide (e.g., Marilyn Monroe and Povl Bang-Jensen) and as accidental (e.g., Jack London and Judy Garland). For the purposes of the present paper, all have been assumed to be suicides.

Appendix B: Statements That Described at Least Two-Thirds of the Suicides (from Leenaars, 1988)*

Adler 5. The person who appears to have arrived a t the end of his limited social

interest sees his suicide as a solution for an urgent problem andlor the injustices of life.

6. The individual considers himself too weak to overcome his personal dif- ficulties and therefore (in revenge) rejects everything with one fell swoop in order to escape the feeling of inferiority, and/or to act intelligently according to his goal of coping with the difficulties of life (with disregard to the community-a beloved person, a teacher, society, or the world at large).

~~

* Excerpts have appeared previously in A. Leenaars (1988) Suicide notes. New York: Human Sciences Press; Suicide across the adult Iifespan Crisis, 10, 132-151; Suicide in the young adult, in Life span perspectives of suicide. New York: Plenum; and other works. Used with permission.

LESTER 171

Binswanger 4. The person communicates that he is experiencing pronounced dread, i.e.,

he seems to be anticipating andlor experiencing great fear or anxiety. 6. The person communicates that he is voluntarily choosing to kill himself. 7. The person communicates that his suicide is basically a consciously planned

action. Jung 1. A “complex” is evident, i.e., something discordant, unassimilated, and

antagonistic exists (e.g., symptoms, ideas), perhaps as an obstacle, pointing to unresolved problems in the individual.

2. Unresolved problems in the individual are evident, where he has suffered defeat, a t least for the time being, and where there is something he cannot evade or overcome. His weak spots are evident.

6. The person communicates the existence of a traumatic event (e.g., an unmet love, a failing marriage, disgust with one’s work) that results in a deep hurt, being desperate and, ultimately, the suicide itself.

7. It appears that a wave of depression and desperation snaps the individual’s link with his relation to the world, resulting in fantasies (“a new undreamt- of world of stars”) that for the individual is far beyond the grievous earth.

2. The person communicates that he is killing himself because his worst expectations are coming true.

4. The person communicates that he is expecting less and less from himself, others, andlor the world.

7. The person communicates that he needs to change himself in order to handle forthcoming events in a way that seems to be impossible to himself.

1. The following three elements (or wishes) are evident: the element of dying, the element of killing, and the element of being killed.

8. The person points out, with passionate eloquence and with flawless logic (from his perspective) that life is hard, bitter, futile, and hopeless; that it entails more pain than pleasure; that there is no profit or purpose in it for him and no conceivable justification for living on.

9. The communications indicate that the person wishes to die; i.e., the suicide is accomplished due to some relative weakness in the capacity for developing constructive tendencies (e.g., attachment, love).

10. The person communicates flight from one of the following: pain, incurable disease, the threat of helpless senility, a violent death; from anticipated rejection, or fear of becoming dependent; or from self-depreciation, feelings of sexual or general inadequacy, humiliation, unknown danger. However, the suicide does not appear to be caused only by such a single thing; other motives (elements, wishes) appear to be evident.

Kelly

Menninger

Murray 1. It appears that although the suicide act does not have adaptive (survival)

value, the suicide does have adjustive value for the individual. The suicide is functional because it abolishes painful tension for the individual; it provides relief from intolerable suffering.

172 SUICIDE AND LIFE-THREATENING BEHAVIOR

2. The suicide appears to be related to unsatisfied or frustrated needs, e.g., achievement, affiliation, autonomy, dominance, etc., although it may be difficult to determine precisely which needs are operating at the time the note was written.

3. The following emotional states are evident: pitiful forlornness, deprivation, distress, and/or grief.

9. There is evidence for egression (defined as a person’s intended departure from a region of distress, chiefly with the aim of terminating, with relief of, the pain he has been suffering) and desertion (e.g., from the suicide’s closest bonded person).

Shneidman 1. The person is focused almost entirely on an unbearable emotion (pain),

and especially one specific (an arbitrarily selected) way to escape from it. 2. The person communicates evidence of adult trauma (e.g., poor health,

rejection by the spouse, being married to a competing spouse). 3. The person communicates that the idea of cessation (death, stopping, or

eternal sleep) provides the solution for a desperate person. It permits him to resolve the unbearable state of self-destructiveness, disturbance, and isolation.

4. The person verbalizes his wish for an ending to all conscious experience and behaves in order to achieve this end.

5. The person is in a state of heightened disturbance (perturbation), e.g., he feels boxed in, rejected, harrassed, unsuccessful, and especially hopeless and helpless.

8. The person communicates the need or wish to “egress,” that is, to leave (the scene), to exit, to get out, to get away, to be gone, not to be around, to be “elsewhere” . . . not to be.

Sullivan 1. The communication allows one to conclude that the suicide appeared to

be determined by the individual’s history and the present interpersonal situation.

3. The person appears to close the possibilities for further development of the personality and movements toward mental health.

10. There is evidence of one of the following: (a) . . . down-phase of a manic- depressive disorder. . . (b) . , . schizophrenia. . . (c) . . . obsessive-compulsive disorder . . . (d) . . . psychopathic disorder . . . (e) . . . depressive disorder . . . There is no evidence of a serious specific disorder but the note appears to be written by an individual who is so baffled in his attempt to subjugate his interests that a paralysis of interest in others and in future possibilities of self has progressed to the point that life has become colorless and wholly unattractive.

Zilboorg 1. The communication suggest that the person’s personality (ego) organization

is not adequately developed (“primitive,” “weak”) and narcissistic. 3. An unwillingness to accept sickness, old age, or too many painful emotions,

not only made it possible for the suicide to accept death willingly, even to seek it, but it also generally led him to project his ideal beyond life ke . , in a hereafter) where life is eternal and forever devoid of any discomfort.

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