Psychology Research Progress Series SUICIDE AND THE CREATIVE ARTS No part of this digital document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means. The publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this digital document, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained herein. This digital document is sold with the clear understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, medical or any other professional services. PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRESS SERIES Suicide and the Creative Arts Steven Stack and David Lester (Editors) 2009. ISBN 978-1-60741-958-7 Psychology Research Progress Series SUICIDE AND THE CREATIVE ARTS STEVEN STACK AND DAVID LESTER EDITORS Nova Science Publishers, Inc. 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The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential, or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or in part, from the readers’ use of, or reliance upon, this material. Any parts of this book based on government reports are so indicated and copyright is claimed for those parts to the extent applicable to compilations of such works. Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Stack, Steven. Suicide and the creative arts / Steven Stack and David Lester. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-60876-560-7 (E-Book) 1. Suicide in art. 2. Suicide--Psychological aspects. I. Lester, David, 1942- II. Title. HV6545.S73 2009 700'.43548--dc22 2009017714 Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. Sylvia Plath CONTENTS The Contributors ix Chapter 1 Introduction: Issues and Summaries of Chapters A Summary of the Chapters 5 Part I: Painting and Traditional Visual Arts 13 Chapter 2 Suicide and the Arts: From the Death of Ajax to Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe 15 Karolina Krysinska Chapter 3 The Suicide of Ajax: A Note on Occupational Strain as a Neglected Factor in Suicidology 49 Steven Stack Part II: Suicide in the Movies 55 Chapter 4 Suicide in Movies: Gender and Choice of Suicide Method 57 Steven Stack and Barbara Bowman Chapter 5 The Legacy of Lucretia: Rape-suicides in Art, 509 BC - 2008 63 Steven Stack and Barbara Bowman Chapter 6 Suicide Films about Adolescents 79 Burcu Sevim Chapter 7 Pain and Altruism: The Suicides in John Wayne’s Films 93 Steven Stack and Barbara Bowman Part III: Suicide in Literature 111 Chapter 8 Suicide Motives in 61 Works of Popular World Literature and Comparison to Film 113 Steven Stack and Barbara Bowman Chapter 9 Suicide in Detective Fiction 125 Fred Mench and Lisa Honaker viii Contents Chapter 10 Suicide in the Opera 137 Beverly Vaughn and David Lester Part IV: Understanding Suicide through the Arts 147 Chapter 11 Suicide in Literature 149 David Lester Chapter 12 The Psychodynamics of Suicide in Sophocles’s Plays 159 David Lester Part V: Suicide in Artists 167 Chapter 13 Suicide in Artists: National Epidemiology 169 Steven Stack Chapter 14 Suicide in Creative Women 189 David Lester Chapter 15 Vincent van Gogh 201 Maurizio Pompili Chapter 16 Artist Suicide in the Cinema 215 Steven Stack and Barbara Bowman Part VI: Contagion 229 Chapter 17 Copycat Effects of Fictional Suicide: A Meta-analysis 231 Steven Stack Chapter 18 Gloomy Sunday: Did the “Hungarian Suicide Song” Really Create a Suicide Epidemic? 245 Steven Stack, Karolina Krysinska and David Lester Chapter 19 The Kabuki Effect 253 Karolina Krysinska and David Lester Part VII: The Creative Arts and Psychotherapy 257 Chapter 20 Poetry as Therapy: The Life of Anne Sexton 259 David Lester and Rina Terry Chapter 21 Masked Depression and Suicidal Ideation in the Drawings of Schizophrenic Patients 271 Dalia Merari Part VIII. Conclusions 299 Chapter 22 Future Work: Points of Departure and Data Sources 301 Steven Stack and David Lester Index 311 In: Suicide and the Creative Arts ISBN 978-1-60741-958-7 Editor: Steven Stack and David Lester © 2009 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. THE CONTRIBUTORS Barbara Bowman received her JD degree from Wayne State University in 1980 and her Masters in Library Science and BA (History) from the University of Michigan. She is a corporate lawyer in Detroit, Michigan. She is also a member of the board of the Center for Suicide Research in Troy, Michigan. Lisa Honaker is an Associate Professor of British Literature at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, where she teaches courses in nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first- century British literature and British and American popular culture. Her research and writing projects have focused on both late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century popular culture. She is an avid reader of detective fiction. Dr Karolina Krysinska is a Research Officer at the Centre for Suicide Prevention Studies in Young People, School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She is a research psychologist, and her interests include risk and protective factors for suicidal ideation and behavior, suicide prevention, and psychological aspects of traumatization. She has published book chapters and papers in peer-reviewed journals on different aspects of suicidal behavior, such as suicide risk assessment, personality disorders and self-harm, social support and help-seeking behaviors in suicidal individuals, medical staff attitudes towards suicide, elderly suicide, and suicide in the prisoners of the Soviet Gulag camps and in Holocaust victims. David Lester has doctoral degrees from Cambridge University (UK) in social and political science and Brandeis University (USA) in psychology. He has been President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, and he has published extensively on suicide, murder and other issues in thanatology. His recent books include Katie’s Diary: Unlocking the Mystery of a Suicide (2004), Suicide and the Holocaust (2005), Is there Life after Death? (2005) and Exit Weeping: Understanding Suicide through the Study of Famous Suicides (2008). Fred Mench is an Emeritus Professor of Classics at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, where he has taught courses in Latin, Classical Literature, Bible, Roman Historical novels and the Detective Story. His research has focused on Julius Caesar and historical x Steven Stack and David Lester novels set in Ancient Rome. For his website on Fictional Rome, go to http://intraweb.stockton.edu/eyos/page.cfm?siteID=78&pageID=1. Professor Dalia Merari holds an MA degree in art therapy from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an MA, and a Ph.D. in psychotherapy and epidemiology from Tel Aviv University. She has been a faculty member for 25 years at the School of Health Professions of the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. The study reported in her chapter is based on her work with psychotic patients at the University-affiliated Geha Psychiatric Hospital. She is currently the President of the Israeli Society of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology. Maurizio Pompili, MD, is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He is Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Sant’Andrea Hospital, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and affiliated at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA. He is a dedicated researcher of suicidology with more than 200 scientific publications in the field. He is the recipient of the American Association of Suicidology’s 2008 Shneidman Award. Burcu Sevim was trained as a clinical psychologist at the Middle East Technical University (MS, 2007) in Ankara, Turkey, and has continued her training in the PhD program in clinical psychology at the same university. She has been involved in the Psinema group, which focuses on movies and psychology, as the second editor and a writer in Psinema, an on-line peer-reviewed periodical. Her articles about movies and psychology have been reviewed in Cinemascope and on various websites. She also has been a radiobroadcaster in Psinema, discussing movies and psychopathology with Professor Faruk Gençöz. Steven Stack received his PhD in sociology from the University of Connecticut in 1976. He has held appointments at Indiana University (Indianapolis), Penn State University and Auburn University. He is currently a Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Criminology at Wayne State University. He has authored 252 articles and chapters, most of which are on the risk and protective factors for suicide.