Understanding and Overcoming the Myths of Suicide What Goes On in the Minds of Those Who Attempt Suicide

Myths about suicide abound in the therapeutic setting. They often inhibit the ability of clinicians (and families) to assess the severity and magnitude of a patient’s suicide risk. This special report discusses some of those myths. In Why I argued that a kind of fearlessness is required to face People Die by Suicide,1 voluntarily the daunting prospect of one’s death, and that doing so necessarily involves a fight against ancient, ingrained, and powerful self-preservation instincts. In I used the framework developed in the Myths About Suicide,2 previous book to contend that death by suicide is neither impulsive, cowardly, vengeful, controlling, nor selfish.