A Sadly Troubled History

by Weaver, John C.

• ISBN13: 9780773535138
• ISBN10: 0773535136
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-01
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ Pr

Summary

More people die by suicide each year than by homicide, wars, and terrorist attacks combined. Witnesses and survivors are left perplexed and troubled. Doctors, clinical psychologists, and social workers try to deal with it through their professional routines; sociologists and psychiatrists attempt to provide theoretical explanations of it. In a study of nearly 7000 suicides from 1900 to 1950, John Weaver documents the challenges that ordinary people experienced during turbulent times and, using witnesses' testimony, death bed statements, and suicide notes, reconstructs individuals' thoughts as they decide whether to endure their suffering. Bridging social and medical history, Weaver presents an intellectual and political history of suicide studies, a revealing construction and deconstruction of suicide rates, a discussion of gender, life stages, and socio-economic circumstances in relation to suicide patterns, reflections on reasoning processes and intent, and society's reactions to suicide, including medical intervention.A Sadly Troubled Historymarshals thousands of suicide inquests, replete with observations on the anxieties of unemployment, the heartbreak of romantic disappointment, the pain of domestic turmoil, and the torments of mental illness, to demonstrate that history - although, like biochemistry, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, reliant on remarkable yet imperfect information - can contribute to a better understanding of the suicidal act and its motives.

Table of Contents

Tables and Graphs	p. ix
Preface	p. xiii
Illustrations following pages 100 and	p. 256
Introduction	p. 3
Theory, Conjecture, And Politics
Suicide as a Gauge for the Times: The Nineteenth Century	p. 19
Epistemic Communities and the Suicide Problem: The Twentieth Century	p. 62
Rates, Society, And Motives
Bearings on a Temporal Compass: Rates, Seasons, Cohorts, and Motives	p. 109
Work and Troubles: Men and Motives	p. 162
Sorrows and Burdens: Women and Motives	p. 213
Rationality, Psyche, And Treatment
What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted? Intentions, Decisions, and Acts	p. 265
Managing Mental Crises: Psychiatry and Suicidal Patients	p. 304
Conclusion	p. 345
Notes	p. 359
Index	p. 429
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