elderly in, 438
Hiroshima bomb survivors in, 490, 497
history of suicide practices in, 137–43, 186, 235, 268, 546n
kamikaze pilots of, 1, 139, 186, 225
post-surrender suicides in, 84, 138–39
suicide categories of, 139, 223, 225
suicide settings in, 143, 341–43, 567n
Jean’s Way (Humphry), 394, 448
Jefferson, Thomas, 173, 550n
Jesus Christ, 152, 153, 416
Jewish law, burial criteria in, 202
Jews:
collective suicides of, 84, 186
Nazi mass murder of, 367, 570n
suicide rates of, 246
Jim in Bold, 265
Joan of Arc, Saint, 155
Job (biblical figure), 152
Jocasta, 144
John Chrysostom, Saint, 154
John Paul II, Pope, 370–71
Johnson, Lancelot, 468
Jones, Jim, 2, 84, 567n
Jonestown, Guyana, mass suicide at, 84, 90, 186, 413, 567n
Journal of the Plague Year, A (Defoe), 84
Joyce, James, 471
Judas Iscariot, 152, 155
Jude the Obscure (Hardy), 240
Jukai, forest of, 342, 344
Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), 123
Jungian psychology, 356
junshi, 139
Justifiable Euthanasia (Admiraal), 390
Justinian I (the Great), Byzantine Emperor, 150
jyoshi shinju, 139–40, 143
Kaiser Permanente, 430
Kalafat, John, 120
Kalasardo, Beverly, 287, 288
Kalmuck Tartars, 431
kamikaze, 1, 139, 186, 225
Kamisar, Yale, 422
Kammerer, Paul, 223
kangen-shi, 139
Kant, Immanuel, 172
Kanwar, Roop, 136
Karens, 364
kashitsu-shi, 139, 223
Kass, Leon, 418, 430
Kastenbaum, Robert, 438
Kaysen, Susanna, 250, 333
Keagan, Kelly, 79
Keats, John, 175, 399
Kehoe, Nancy, 337–38, 355
Kelly, David, 223
Kennedy, Foster, 436
Kenyan tribes, suicide ethics of, 364
Keown, John, 424–25
Kernberg, Otto, 351
Kerouac, Jack, 272
Kevorkian, Flora, 378
Kevorkian, Jack “Dr. Death,” 3, 376–83, 421, 435
assistants of, 378, 379–80, 572n, 577n
background of, 376, 377
finances of, 380
Hemlock Society approached by, 396
notoriety of, 380, 383, 412, 442
obitoria conceived by, 377, 444
personality of, 381
physical appearance of, 376
prosecutions against, 378, 379, 382–83, 435
recreational activities of, 380–81, 383, 572n
screening process used by, 378, 379, 380, 381–82
suicide machine constructed by, 377, 378
suicides enabled by, 378–79, 382, 384, 385, 389, 399, 411, 571n–72n
Kierkegaard, Søren, 227
Kiev, Ari, 329, 330, 332, 351
King Lear (Shakespeare), 96
Kinnell, David (fictitious name), 242–43
Kirk, Alton, 257, 258
Klagsbrun, Samuel, 43, 49, 81, 117
Kleist, Heinrich von, 175
Klugman, David, 301, 302, 311
Knight, Etheridge, 255
Knock, Matthew, 225
Koestenbaum, Peter, 357
Koestler, Arthur, 392–93, 401, 418–19, 575n
Koestler, Cynthia, 392–93, 418–19, 575n
Kohn, Mel, 386
kokoro no kaze, 142–43
Koop, C. Everett, 421–22
Koppel, Ted, 339
Koresh, David, 2
Kornhaber, Eugene, 60, 63, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76
Kraai, John, 571n
Kramer, Sandri, 286–87
Kubie, Lawrence, 224, 227
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth, 488
Kunitz, Stanley, 494
Kushner, Howard, 248
Laborit, Henri, 318
labor pains, 574n
Lamartine, Alphonse-Marie-Louis de Prat de, 87, 176
Lamm, Richard, 431–32
Landers, Ann, 81, 336
landmarks, suicides at, 143, 238, 340–46, 349, 353, 561n, 567n
Larue, Gerald, 395, 414
LASPC, see Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center
Last Wish (Rollin), 375
Laws (Plato), 146
Lay My Burden Down (Poussaint and Alexander), 255, 257
lebensunwertes Leben (life unworthy of life), 367
Lee, Barbara Coombs, 387, 428
leeches, 555n
Lemberg Volunteer Rescue Society, 561n
Lester, David, 307
lethal injections, 375, 384, 389, 391, 410, 573n
lethality, 301, 314
Let Me Die Before I Wake (Humphry), 398, 401, 422, 447–48
Leukakas, 144–45
Levi, Primo, 222
Levin, Jack, 437
Levine, Stephen, 397
Levinson, A. J., 445
Libanius, 147
life, quality of, 364, 368–69, 450
Life Crisis Services, 439
life expectancy, 367, 433
life insurance claims, 419, 475
Lifes Preservative Against Self-Killing (Sym), 163–64, 269
life-support systems, 369–75, 415, 416, 571n
life unworthy of life (lebensunwertes Leben), 367, 421, 570n
Lifton, Robert Jay, 226–27, 230, 490, 497, 570n
Light, Donald, 326–28, 329
Lincoln, Abraham, 353, 568n–69n
Lincoln, Mary Todd, 353
Lindemann, Erich, 488, 489, 492, 521
Linehan, Marsha, 323
literature, suicide portrayed in, 86–87, 116, 140–41, 160–61, 167–68, 175–76, 443–44, 494, 495
lithium, 64, 66, 71, 229, 319–20, 564n, 569n
Lithuania, suicide rates of, 197, 246
Litman, Robert:
background of, 298
on ethics of suicide prevention, 356
on Freud, 188
on Monroe suicide, 302
on physicians’ personalities, 251
on risk assessment, 57–58, 316
on self-image expectations, 224, 226
in suicide prevention work, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 308–9, 311, 350
suicide zone posited by, 57–58
on therapists’ responses to patient suicide, 329–30
living wills, 371–72, 395, 451
lobotomies, 194, 251
Locke, John, 171–72
Loiseau, Bernard, 223
London, England, suicide rates vs. social isolation in, 249
London Anti-Suicide Bureau, 293
Longmore, Paul, 577n
LoPuzzo, Mike, 23–24, 30, 35, 43, 124
Lorenz, Konrad, 489
Los Angeles County, Death Investigation Team of, 301–2
Los Angeles County General Hospital, 298–99
Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center (LASPC), 298–304, 305, 474
crisis hotline operated by, 302, 311, 562n–63n
current institutional life of, 282–90, 317, 523
follow-up services tried by, 308–9
group therapy offered at, 324
growth of, 298–99, 302
on mental illness vs. suicidality, 355–56
offices of, 298–99, 303
personnel of, 300–301, 303–4
psychological autopsy developed by, 302, 468, 472
public education work of, 303
start of, 298–99
suicidology analysis of, 301, 303, 313
surviving families’ needs addressed by, 472–73, 524
training programs developed by, 303
loss
, 44, 222–24, 438
see also grief
love-pact suicides, 139–40, 143, 175
see also double suicides
Lowell, Robert, 445
Lucretia, 153, 159, 166
Lucretius, 147
Lyle, Katie Letcher, 436
Lynch, Thomas, 239
Lyons, Mark, 403–4
MacArthur, John, Jr., 337
McCollum, Jack, 88
McCollum, John, 86, 88
MacDonald, Richard, 408
McGee, Richard, 306–7
McGoldrick, Monica, 493
McGovern, George, 16
McIntosh, John, 473–74
Mack, John, 357
McLean Hospital, 327, 333
Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 531–32
Mad in America (Whitaker), 194
magical thinking, 49, 81, 540n
Maine, assisted-suicide legislation effort in, 427
Mair, George, 402
Malays, 275
Maleska, Merryl, 455–65, 467, 490, 580n
career of, 458, 459, 481, 485
grieving process of, 481–87, 502–12, 527–30, 535–36
marriage of, 456–58, 460–64
new relationships begun by, 508–10, 527–28, 536
support group attended by, 512, 513, 514–15, 516, 529
as surviving spouse, 455, 465, 477–87, 502–11, 580n
malpractice litigation, 329, 332, 353, 368
Maltsberger, John, 318, 322, 324–26, 327, 328, 330, 333
Man Against Himself (Menninger), 204–5, 237, 270, 277
managed care plans, see health maintenance organizations
Manes, Donald, 223, 554n
manic depression, see bipolar disorder
“Manipulated Suicide” (Battin), 444, 445
Mann, John, 191–92, 193, 196, 197, 322
Marcellus, 152
Maris, Ronald, 308
Marker, Rita, 573n–74n
Marks, Rona (fictitious name), 512, 515, 516
marriage:
divorce rates and, 51, 125, 186, 253
suicidality risk lessened in, 185, 186, 221, 256, 427, 438
Martial, 150
Martin, Sandy, 65–66, 70, 122
Martin, Walter, 204
martyrdom, religious, 1, 152–54, 155, 275, 547n, 548n
Marzuk, Peter, 225
Masada, collective Jewish suicide at, 84, 186
Masako, Princess, 143
Masaryk, Thomas, 183, 184
masked depression, 42
masochism, martyrdom vs., 153
Massachusetts, historical suicide penalties in, 165
Massachusetts Mental Health Center, 326
Massilia, suicide customs of, 147
mass media, violence portrayed in, 54–55, 90–91, 541n, 542n–43n
masturbation, 178, 331, 550n
Mather, Increase, 165
Maupassant, Guy de, 443–44, 445
Medicaid, 432, 434
Medical Histories and Reflections (Ferriar), 366
“Medical Science Under Dictatorship” (L. Alexander), 421
medical treatment, see health care; health insurance; physicians
Medicare, 432, 433, 442
Medici, Alessandro de, 166
medievalism, 158, 162, 167
meditation, 323, 351
Meerloo, Joost, 237, 262, 275, 276–77, 546n, 554n
melancholy, 162–64, 165
Mellaril, 103
Melville, Herman, 249, 276, 278, 569n
Menninger, Karl, 204–5, 206, 237, 547n, 558n
on self-destructive behaviors, 270–71, 272, 277
mental asylums, 180
see also psychiatric hospitalization
Mental Health Center (Seattle), 439
mental health services:
access to, 257, 331, 335, 336, 434, 564n, 566n
coercive utilization of, 352–53, 354–55
deinstitutionalization of, 335, 336
federal support of, 307–8, 562n
professional hierarchy within, 300, 326
survivor support groups and, 524
underutilization of, 257–58, 316–17, 557n, 564n
see also psychiatric hospitalization
mental illness:
civil liberties and, 332, 352, 354–55
denial of existence of, 352, 355
family history of, 181, 197–98
in homeless population, 335
homosexuality considered as, 261–62, 558n
medicalization of, 336
Nazi euthanasia practices in, 367, 570n, 577n
somatic treatments for, 179–80, 194–95
stigma of, 181–82, 316–17, 564n
substance abuse vs., 272
suicide as evidence of, 173, 178–82, 202, 292, 354, 355–57, 550n
surviving family stigmatized by association to, 470–72
see also depression; psychiatric disorders; psychiatric hospitalization
Mercitron, 378, 379, 396
mercy killing, 570n
see also euthanasia
Merian, 178, 355
Merkin, Daphne, 318
Metrazol convulsive therapy, 194
Mexican Americans, 258
Michigan, physician-assisted suicides in, 378–79, 382–83, 427
Middlemarch (Eliot), 49
Midler, Bette, 115
Mihara-Yama, 341
Milan cathedral, 341
Millard, C. Killick, 366
Miller, Derek, 42–43
Miller, Samuel, 87, 469
Milne, A. A., 366
Minot, George R., 416
Mishima, Yukio, 140–41, 142, 560n
Moby-Dick (Melville), 5, 249, 276
modeling, 44, 495
Modern Maturity, 395
Mohr, Myron, 262
Molitor, Karl, 86
Monday, highest suicide rate on, 250
monoamine oxidase, 195
monoamine oxidase inhibitors, 319
“Monody on the Death of Chatterton” (Wordsworth), 175
Monroe, Marilyn, 89, 90, 302
Montaigne, Michel de, 159
Montana, suicide rate of, 247
Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat de, 138, 167, 170, 173
Monty Python, 435, 551n
Moore, Charles, 366
Morals and Medicine (Fletcher), 415
moral statistics, 183
More, Thomas, 159–60, 164, 443
morphine sedation, 374, 375, 384, 388
Morselli, Henry, 183–84, 185
Moss, Leonard, 43
mother-infant bonding, 46–47
Motto, Jerome, 43, 308, 318, 336, 344
mountaineers, 275, 560n
Mount Fuji, 143, 342
Mount Mihara, 341–42
mourning, see grief
Mourning and Melancholia (Freud), 189
Mudge, George P., 470
murder:
biblical prohibition of, 414–15
of political prisoners, 560n
rates of, 37
suicide as inversion of, 133–34, 189, 224–25, 252
suicide completed after, 90, 140, 225–26
suicide considered as, 154–55, 156, 414–15
suicide rates vs. rate of, 252, 558n
victim’s intentional provocation of, 254, 275–76
Murphy, George, 353
Musonius, 365
Musset, Alfred de, 176
Mussolini, Benito, 543n
Mutsuhito, Emperor of Japan, 139
Myth of Sisyphus, The (Camus), 204
Nally, Kenneth, 337
Napoleon Bonaparte, 85
National Hopeline Network, 310
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 298, 303, 304, 307
National Inuit Youth Council (NIYC), 260–61
National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide (NOPCAS), 557n–58n
National Rifle Association (NRA), 348, 349
National Save-A-Life League, 291–93, 294, 302, 307
National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP), 310
National Suicide Prevention Week, 351
National Survivors Conference, 474
Native Americans, suicides of, 84, 132–33, 258, 259–61, 558n
Nazism, 222, 293, 367, 413, 421, 422, 444, 560n, 570n, 577n
negotiated deaths, 371
Nembutal, 410
Nero, Emperor of Rome, 149, 150
Nerval, Gérard de, 175
Neser, Johannes, 163
Netherlands:
palliative care deficiencies in, 424, 426, 441–42
physician-assisted euthanasia in, 377, 389–91, 421, 422–26, 573n
neuroanatomy studies, 191–94
neurotransmitters, 192, 195, 319
dopamine, 195
norepinephrine, 195, 275
serotonin, 40, 47–48, 192–93, 195–97, 199, 201, 250
Nevada, highest suicide rates in, 247
Newell, Barbara Spires (fictitious name), 210–11
Newell, Kathy (fictitious name), 210, 211, 215
Newell, Peter (fictitious name), 209–20, 221, 222, 224, 274
Newell, Ruth (fictitious name), 210, 211–12, 216, 217, 219
Newell, Sally (fictitious name), 210–11, 212–13, 216, 217, 218, 219
New England, low suicide rate of, 248
New Jersey Supreme Court, Quinlan case of, 369–70, 371
New Mexico, suicide rate of, 247
New Technology in Self-Deliverance Group (NuTech), 409–10
New Testament, 151, 152
New World in Words, A (Phillips), 268
New York, N.Y., suicide rates of, 249, 252–53, 256
New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), 191–94
New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, 435
Neylor, Lewis, 340
Niagara Falls, 341
Nicaragua, state censorship of suicide reports in, 246–47
Nicol, Neil, 379
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 311
Nigeria, tribal suicide customs of, 364
Night Falls Fast (Jamison), 95, 335–36, 581n
Nightline, 338–39
nightmares, 490, 501, 502
“Night Thoughts” (Young), 174
NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), 298, 303, 304, 307
Nitschke, Philip, 410, 437
NIYC (National Inuit Youth Council), 260–61
Nobel, Alfred, 444
“no code” order, 374, 449
Nogi, Kiten, 139
nonabandonment, 384–85
Noonday Demon, The (Solomon), 322, 419
NOPCAS (National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide), 557n–58n
norepinephrine, 195, 275
Norman, Pat, 261
Northern Ireland, low suicide rate of, 246
Norway, suicide rates in, 245, 248
no-suicide contracts, 315
Not Dead Yet, 435, 577n
Nouvelle Héloïse, La (Rousseau), 167–68
November, as month of suicide, 173, 178, 184, 249
NRA (National Rifle Association), 348, 349
NSSP (National Strategy for Suicide Prevention), 310
nuclear arms race, 270
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