Suicides of elite Japanese writers: The case of Ryunosuke Akutagawa.

Background . To mark the 130th birth anniversary of Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927), I revisit his suicide (as recorded by his hand) in comparison to that of his junior contemporaries, who also chose a similar mode of death. Data sources . Two works of Akutagawa, namely Tenkibo (1926: Death Register) and Aru Ahono Issho (1927: The Life of a Stupid Man) in English translation of Jay Rubin were used as the main sources, in addition to published literature about his creativity. Results . In his final work, The Life of a Stupid Man, completed in the penultimate month before suicide, 7 among the 51 brief descriptions, Akutagawa had described his thoughts on illness and death, in addition to visiting his biological mother in a lunatic asylum, and studying a cadaver for his famous short story 'Rashomon'. These descriptions offer a fascinating perspective on Akutagawa's state of mind, before his suicide. Akutagawa's suicide is also compared with the suicides of five other renowned Japanese writers (Osamu Dazai, Yasunari Kawabata, Misuzu Kaneko, Yukio Mishima and Juzo Itami). Conclusion . Before his suicide, doctors offered Akutagawa various diagnoses: 'insomnia, gastric hyperacidity, gastric atony, dry pleurisy, neurasthenia, chronic conjunctivitis, brain fatigue'. Though it is uncertain, what percentage of hereditary factor(s) played a role, why the practitioners of the medical profession in 1920s Japan failed to save the life of this creative individual still remains a question.

A writer's suicide: On creativity, mental health, gender and ethics.

The correlation between creativity and mental illness has been at the centre of ongoing debates for quite some time. This has its roots in the Romantic era (late 18th to mid-19th century), when melancholia and madness were considered to be the signs of creativity and genius. Because of this, writers like Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and many other prominent creative minds have been represented in popular narratives as having reached the heights of their creative careers while struggling with their mental health. This paper addresses the need for moving away from Romantic era notions of the relationship between madness, genius, and melancholia that reinforce the inseparability of the writer and the text, thereby trivialising the real causes and effects of mental illness. The paper also addresses the need for a health humanities intervention within the Indian literary public, using examples from the existing narratives on the late Malayalam writer Rajelakshmy ‒ an established woman writer in the 1960s ‒ who died by suicide in her mid-thirties. This paper will also reflect on the author's own experience of reading and working with Rajelakshmy's writings over the years.

"I'm at My Rope's End": Suicide in New Orleans, 1920-1940.

For over a century, researchers have argued that suicide in the United States fluctuates with business cycles, rising during downturns, when "deaths of despair" skyrocket, and falling during flush periods. Using case-level data from autopsy reports and suicide notes, this essay analyzes suicide trends in New Orleans between 1920 and 1940, an era that included immense prosperity and the Great Depression. Thus, the essay draws from quantitative and qualitative evidence to revisit the leading explanation for suicide patterns. It concludes that only a small segment of the population experienced surges and contractions in response to economic forces. For other New Orleanians, different stressors, relating to class-, race-, and gender-based expectations, shaped suicidal behavior. Firearm availability and public health conditions also influenced suicide patterns. Counterintuitively, suicide rates soared in good times and plummeted in bad times.

Webconferência: prevenção à suicídios - Telessaúde ES 07/10/2015

Fomentar reflexões a respeito do acolhimento e manejo do sofrimento psíquico que por vezes culmina no suicídio. Destarte, importante adentrarmos na questão da incipiência da contemporaneidade em oferecer vias de elaboração da angústia humana. A epidemiologia e a história do suicídio serão evocados como intercessor do debate visando a uma contextualização social do fato que qualifique a aplicação dos instrumentais clínicos de detecção de risco para suicídio.

Collective Optimism and Selection Against Male Twins in Utero.

Scholarly literature claims that health declines in populations when optimism about investing in the future wanes. This claim leads us to describe collective optimism as a predictor of selection in utero. Based on the literature, we argue that the incidence of suicide gauges collective optimism in a population and therefore willingness to invest in the future. Using monthly data from Sweden for the years 1973-2016, we test the hypothesis that the incidence of suicide among women of child-bearing age correlates inversely with male twin births, an indicator of biological investment in high-risk gestations. We find that, as predicted by our theory, the incidence of suicide at month t varies inversely with the ratio of twin to singleton male births at month t + 3. Our results illustrate the likely sensitivity of selection in utero to change in the social environment and so the potential for viewing collective optimism as a component of public health infrastructure.

You shall bury him: burial, suicide and the development of Catholic law and theology.

Whether physician-assisted dying should be legalised is a major debate in medical ethics and much has been written on it from both secular and religious perspectives. Less, however, has been written on one of the potential consequences of legalised physician-assisted death: whether those who undergo this procedure will be given funerals by religious groups who oppose the practice. This article investigates the Catholic Church's attitude to the burial of suicides, and how Catholic canon law has approached the question of ecclesiastic funerals for suicides throughout its history. From the sixth through the late 20th century, the Church technically did not bury anyone who willfully committed suicide. Broad shifts in the cultural attitude towards suicide, due in large part to new understandings of mental illness as disease, had a powerful effect on Catholic thought and practice in modernity, and the Church eventually dropped the ban on funerals for suicides from its law code altogether in the 1980s. The legalisation of physician-assisted death, however, raises again the possibility of a prohibition on funerals. The Church was able to drop its restrictions on funerals since suicide was seen as an act beyond the control of the deceased and thus worthy of mercy and compassion. In cases of physician-assisted dying, the patient must have consciously and willingly agreed to the procedure, undermining this understanding of suicide. The history of canon law on suicide funerals reveals the complexity of the Catholic attitude towards suicide and provides an important context to the current debate around physician-assisted death, and conflicts between medicine and religion more broadly.

The Press and Suicides in the 19th Century: Investigating Possible Imitative Effects in Five Territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

During the 19th century, suicide rates increased in many countries. The press may have contributed to this increase, even though empirical evidence is lacking in this regard. We assessed suicide statistics within five territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1871 and 1910 and combined these data with a content analysis of suicide reporting in five newspapers, each appearing in one of the five territories. The analysis revealed a covariation between the quantity of reporting and the number of suicides within all five regions. Furthermore, the quantity of reporting significantly predicted the following year's suicides. Although the causal order of suicides and the quantity of reporting should be assessed with caution, evidence is consistent with the idea that the press may have contributed to the establishment of suicide as a mass phenomenon. The findings also support contemporary guidelines for journalists, especially the notion of avoiding undue repetition of suicide stories.

A Historical Examination of Military Records of US Army Suicide, 1819 to 2017.

Importance: Suicide rates among active-duty personnel in the US military have increased substantially since 2004, and numerous studies have attempted to contextualize and better understand this phenomenon. Placing contemporary examinations of suicides among active-duty personnel in the US Army in historical context provides opportunities for joint historical and epidemiological research to inform health care professionals and policy makers. Objectives: To consolidate data on suicide rates among active-duty personnel in the US Army as far back as historical records allow and to identify historical trends to separate them from more acute causal factors. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cross-sectional study included all active-duty service members in the US Army from 1819 to 2017 as identified and detailed in US government publications, studies, and journal articles. Empirical data were extracted from US government publications and journal articles published from 1819 to 2017. Data collection and analysis were completed between July and August of 2019. Exposure: Suicide. Main Outcomes and Measures: Suicide rates per 100 000 individuals. Results: Starting in 1843, the overall trend in annual suicide rates among active-duty service members in the US Army increased, with a peak rate of 118.3 per 100 000 in 1883. From that historical high point, the rate decreased in 3 successive waves, each corresponding to the end of the following wars: the Spanish-American War (1898), World War I (1914-1918), and World War II (1939-1945). The latter had the historically lowest rate of 5 per 100 000 in 1944 to 1945. During the Cold War (approximately 1945-1991), the rate generally stabilized in the low teens to midteens (ie, 10-15 per 100 000). The rate increased again during the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, increasing to 29.7 per 100 000 in 2012. From 2008 to present, the annual rate has remained within the range of 20.2 to 29.7 per 100 000. Conclusions and Relevance: This study represents the most extensive historical examination of suicides in the US Army to date. By taking a long-term historical approach to suicide among active-duty personnel in the US Army, this study affords future researchers a new analytical tool and an additional perspective from which to better differentiate long-term and historical trends from more short-term and temporary causal factors.

In the shadow of National Socialism: Early emigration and suicide of the oral pathologist Rudolf Kronfeld (1901-1940).

The physician Rudolf Kronfeld (1901-1940) is undoubtedly one of the pioneering and most influential representatives of modern histopathology and oral pathology. Already at a young age he became a protagonist of the renowned, internationally leading "Vienna School". Kronfeld's outstanding professional significance stands in a peculiar contrast to the research situation to date: His curriculum vitae, but also his family background - and here in particular the fate of his family members in the Third Reich - have received little attention so far. Thus, the present study attempts to shed light on Kronfeld's life and work and, in particular, the complex implications of his Jewish background. It is based on archival sources and a systematic re-analysis of the relevant specialist literature. The analysis demonstrates that Kronfeld's early emigration was driven in part by the anti-Semitism that was tangible in Vienna in the 1920s. The last years of his life were considerably burdened by a serious illness and by repressive experiences which his Jewish family members and companions underwent after the "Anschluss" of Austria into Nazi Germany. Both essential events presumably contributed significantly to Kronfeld's sudden suicide in 1940, at the height of his professional success.

The New York Herald's Very First Report on Dr. Horace Well's Arrest and Suicide-An Original Article Found in New York City Public Library.

The accounts of Dr. Wells' personal life, particularly those of his tempestuous final days, have remained somewhat speculative. On January 24, 1848, a troubled Dr. Wells raced outside of his home and practice on Chambers Street and threw sulfuric acid (vitriol) on two alleged "loose" Broadway girls. We were able to find an original copy of an article published by the New York Herald in the New York City Public Library describing the events of Well's final days.

[The oeuvre, life history and illness of Sylvia Plath].

The roots of confessionalism reach back to the early Middle Ages and to the Confessions of Rousseau. Confessional literature gained a theoretical foundation in the age of Romanticism, then in the 20th century the genre underwent a revival and late modernisation in the works of the "confessional poets" (Lowell, Sexton, Plath etc.). The literary studies and psychobiographical examination of these authors threw light on the psychiatric aspects of confessionalism; most of them suffered from psychiatric or addictive disorders and committed suicide. Confessional poetry takes repetition of the (fragmented) psychological process of the individual life history as its almost sole theme. The poet builds up, demolishes, then again builds up his or her own life history, blurring the boundaries of reality and fiction. Interrupted personality development and the failure to work through traumatic experiences can be observed in the psychological background, to which Vladimir Nabokov also referred in his personal notes. In this collection of Psychiatria Hungarica about Sylvia Plath, titled The Broken-necked Deer the studies in three parts under the headings oeuvre, life history, illness are imbued with considerations of literary psychology and literary psychiatry that expand and enrich both literary studies and the psychiatric field of vision.

[Failure in the construction of the ego in confessional poetry - Sylvia Plath and Attila Jozsef].

The two poets, an American Sylvia Plath and a Hungarian, Attila József were separated by a quarter of century of time, they lived and worked in different spaces, cultures, but both created in their poetry a radically new style of self-expression, called confessional poetry. The "Belated Lament" of Attila József was written in 1936, and in the following year its author - after repeated earlier attempts - committed suicide. The "Daddy" of Sylvia Plath was written in 1962. She, again, after several attempts, killed herself the following year. They both talk about the powerful effect of the disruptive effect of unresolved Oedipal memories, both are deeply concerned with mourning of the Oedipal other a father and a mother (who died several decades before), and they also construct the death of their own. They both present themselves as an unsuccessful Oedipus and articulate a disturbing and disruptive arrival to Kolonos.

[From the experience to anger: The elaboration of the feelings against the parents in the art of Sylvia Plath].

AIM: The purpose of this present paper is to demonstrate the biographical antecedents and the adverse childhood experiences, which might have possibly contributed to those ambivalent feelings which can be observed in Sylvia Plath's confessional art in relation to her parents. METHOD: Biographical-, document- and artistic analyzes. The analyzed artistic pieces are the following: Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, The Bell Jar, Collected poems (from The Colossus and Ariel books) and the Journals by Sylvia Plath. The reconstruction of the biography was conducted based on international textbooks. RESULTS: Sylvia Plath at the age of 30, on the 12th of October, 1962 wrote her famous poem, Daddy, which starts with these lines: "You do not do, you do not do /Any more, black shoe/In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white,/Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you./You died before I had time/Marble-heavy, a bag full of God/Ghastly statue with one gray toe/Big as a Frisco seal/And a head in the freakish Atlantic /Where it pours bean green over blue/In the waters off beautiful Nauset./I used to pray to recover you. /Ach, du Dreck." A couple of months later, on the 11th of February 1963. Sylvia Plath committed suicide. Her journal entries and her works all testified that the emotional relationship with her parents significantly contributed to her genuine art and at the same time to the onset of her psychiatric illness. According to her journals, Sylvia Plath reported hate and ambivalent feelings several times to her psychiatrists. It is very likely, that the illness and death of Otto Plath and the emotional crises afterwards might have been that primary experience that might have exercised an adverse effect on Sylvia's life, and what have been composed very vividly in the poem called Daddy. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the analyzes of the biography, the journals and the poems, it can be stated, that the adverse childhood experiences, Sylvia had to experience during her father's illness, after his death, and during the restructuring of the family system are vital in the understanding of Sylvia Plath's art and her psychopathology.

[Devil and God - The double role of Ted Hughes in Sylvia Plath's life and death].

The relationship of two, equally talented poets, as it can have whether a beneficient or inhibitory effect on both person's creative processes, is informative in a 'literature psychological' way. The present study aims to analyse the marriage of the poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Sylvia Plath's life was directed by several dualities; her polarized perspective, being likely the result of her psychiatric illness, has taken control over every area of her life. Although, its most important duality is in connexion with the laureate British poet, Ted Hughes: she idealized and hated the man - being both her love and spouse - at the same time. Their marriage, fecundating the poetry of both, has led to a tempestuous ending. Soon after, the young Sylvia took her own life, and the public - more or less implicitly stating - blames it on Ted Hughes. In the present study we tend to give a literature psychological analysis of their relationship, based on their autobiographical works and, focused on the stages leading to the crisis, to question whether the personality of Plath could have an effect on the ending of their marriage? Could these phenomena have contributed to the early death of Sylvia Plath - and, especially, what was Ted Hughes's role in this process?

[On Sylvia Plath's Personality].

In this early study, written in 1985, I examined six of the most important personality traits of Sylvia Plath, the poet and writer (1). Sylvia oscillated between positions of dependency and independence; she was characterised by sexual inhibition and promiscuity, writer's block and an explosion of writing, achievement con- straint and liberation from the constraint, emotional dependence and independence. Paradoxically, she committed suicide when far more things (children, productive creative period, publication of her novel) tied her to life than was the case before her first suicide attempt (2). Her life was spent in the perspective of death; death was her main point of reference, and at the same time was a constantly present alternative solution (3). Her neurasthenic, sometimes bipolar mode of existence determined her everyday behaviour: fatigue, irritability, a low ability to tolerate failure, a tendency to somatisation, anxious attitude, low self-esteem (4). She lived between extremes: insensitivity and over-sensitivity, bad and good moods, ego systole and ego diastole, ambivalence towards close family members (father, mother, Ted), relationship fluctuating between adoration and hate (5). Her poetry persona was characterised by object phobia: in her poems objects become hooks, loops, traps (6). She was ambivalent towards both women and men: she hated women, while her effective therapist was a woman; she was jealous of men, she was not capable of a symmetrical partner relationship, she was either subordinate or superior. In Plath's poetry the incompatible dichotomy of soft worm and hard mask refers to the irreconcilable contradiction between the male and female world.