ABSTRACT
How can we understand suicide? What data can we legitimately use to understand the suicidal mind? I believe that personal narratives or documents are one of the most valuable sources, sources such as suicidal notes, suicidal poems, and suicide diaries. Shneidman (1980) in Voices of Deathconcluded from over forty years of study that such personal “documents contain special revelations of the human mind and that there is much one can learn from them.”
