Suicidal Thoughts

Max Malikow is an Assistant Professor of Education at Le Moyne College and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Syracuse University. His other books include Teachers for Life (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006) and Living When a Young Friend Commits Suicide, co-authored with Earl Grollman. He is also a psychotherapist in private practice in Syracuse, New York.

It is a testimony to Max Malikow's long devotion to understanding suicide, as well as his editorial acumen, that this book grabs our hearts for both the questions it makes us consider and the people it helps us to understand.

• Chapter 1 I. Sylvia Plath: A Miscalculation? (A. Alvarez) A brilliant poet ends her life in an apparent suicide. In this excerpt from The Savage God, A. Alvarez expresses why he doubts that it was a suicide.Chapter 2 II. Uncle Camp's Suicide (Olive Ann Burns) A man convinced of his unworthiness to live commits suicide. From the 1984 bestseller Cold Sassy Tree.Chapter 3 III. A Survivor's Benediction (Sue Chance, M.D.) A psychiatrist reflects on her son's suicide.Chapter 4 IV. A Suicide Occurs - The Abuse of Religion (Rabbi Earl A. Grollman, D.D.) A prolific writer on the subject of bereavement provides a history of philosophical and religious thought on the topic of suicide.Chapter 5 V. A Philosopher Almost Commits Suicide (Eric Hoffer)One of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers explains his decision to kill himself and why he changed his mind.Chapter 6 VI. The Pact (Kay Jamison, Ph.D.) A brilliant, suicidal psychologist makes an agreement with an equally brilliant, suicidal friend.Chapter 7 VII. A Psychiatrist's Son Commits Suicide (Gordon Livingston, M.D.) In an excerpt from Too Old Too Soon, Too Smart Too Late Dr. Livingston shares his thoughts in the wake of his son's suicide.Chapter 8 VIII. Altruistic Suicide (Max Malikow, Th.D.) An Air Force pilot, a pregnant woman with cancer, and four clergymen choose to die for the sake of others.Chapter 9 IX. The Significance of How People Kill Themselves (Karl Menninger, M.D.) In his classic, Man Against Himself, Dr. Menninger addresses the meaning of the methods employed by those who accomplish their suicide.Chapter 10 X. Professor Bridgman's Suicide (Sherwin Nuland, M.D.) A Harvard professor and Nobel Prize winner decides to end his life.Chapter 11 XI. Suicide as a Cure for Depression (Walker Percy, M.D.) A celebrated author proposes the serious contemplation of suicide as an effective treatment for depression.Chapter 12 XII. Getting a Second Wind (Rick Reilly) Grieving parents make a decision that saves a life and enriches their's.Chapter 13 XIII. A Suicidologist's Reflections (Edwin Shneidman, Ph.D.) After forty years of research and practice an eminent psychologist offers his understanding of why people kill themselves.Chapter 14 XIV. Suicide as Psychache (Edwin Shneidman, Ph.D.)Dr. Shneidman elaborates on the term he coined as part of his explanation that suicide has to do with an individual's threshold for enduring pain in the mind.Chapter 15 XV. I Want to Die (Rod Steiger) An Academy Award winning actor's dramatic reading of his thoughts when suffering from a debilitating clinical depression.Chapter 16 XVI. I'm Dying (William Styron) One of this generation's most gifted and accomplished authors describes the downward spiral that nearly ended with his suicide.Chapter 17 XVII. In Control of Our Death (Judith Viorst) A renown psychologist fails to keep a luncheon date when he commits suicide.