Presents a psychological and scientific exploration of suicide, discussing the reasons why people choose to kill themselves; and features personal essays about individual suicides, examples of methods and places people have taken their own lives, and selections from their journals, drawings, and farewell notes.

A haunting meditation on mortality, grief, and loss. Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison--who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with a writerly elegance and passion--could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. She looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia. And with her characteristic...

"The best-selling author of An Unquiet Mind now gives us a groundbreaking life of one of the major American poets of the twentieth century that is at the same time a fascinating study of the relationship between manic-depressive (bipolar) illness, creative genius, and character. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry, Robert Lowell (1917-1977) put his manic-depressive illness into the public domain. Now Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison brings her expertise...

The anguished, volatile intensity we associate with the artistic temperament, often described as "a fine madness," has been thought of as a defining aspect of much artistic genius. Now, Kay Jamison's brilliant work, based on years of studies as a clinical psychologist and prominent researcher in mood disorders, reveals that many artists who were subject to alternatingly exultant and then melancholic moods were, in fact, engaged in a lifelong struggle...

Over four million people a year in the U.S. mourn the tragic suicide deaths of family members. Suicide devastates family members for many years; family survivors are at greater risk of suicide themselves and the pain ripples out to the entire community. In this video, family survivors reveal their intimate stories and aching pain to assist other survivors and to help the broader community understand the unique and terrible grief of suicide. This documentary...