Feb 12, 2012 | 05:44
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May 19, 2009
In Memoriam — Edwin Shneidman
Edwin S. Shneidman, professor emeritus of thanatology, the study of the phenomena of death, died May 15 at his home in West Los Angeles. He was 91. A professor with dual appointments in the departments of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences as well as Psychology, Shneidman was a pioneering authority on suicide. He was founder of the American Association of Suicidology, co-founder of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center and the author of numerous books on death and suicide, including his last, "A Commonsense Book of Death: Reflections at Ninety of a Lifelong Thanatologist" (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008). He also helped found a national suicide prevention project. In 1987, he was awarded the American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Service.
Shneidman was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who settled in York, Pa. He earned two degrees in psychology from UCLA, a B.A. degree in 1938 and an M.A. degree in 1940. As a child, he was sickly, staying at home frequently and passing the time reading the “Encyclopedia Britannica.” He once told a UCLA Today reporter that about 50 percent of what he knows is the result of perusing the “Britannica,” a work he once equated with the Old Testament, the Koran and the Upanishads. In 1973, when Shneidman was in his mid-50s, the “Britannica” published seven pages of his writing on a subject that has been his lifelong passion: suicide.
Shneidman’s interest in suicide began in 1949 with a visit to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. As a clinical psychologist, he was investigating the suicides of two men — one of whom had left a suicide note. Although Shneidman had never seen a suicide note before, he knew instinctively not to read it — lest he find his own prejudices in the note. Instead, for research purposes, he began collecting hundreds of suicide notes, including a number solicited from non-suicidal people, all of which he also did not read. Then, with a colleague’s help, he began to analyze the notes without knowing the writers’ identities or intentions.
Using John Stuart Mill’s method of inductive reasoning — the process of arriving from a number of particular observations to a generalization — Shneidman and his colleague were able to discern accurately which suicide notes were genuine and which were not.
Suicide, according to Shneidman, results from “psychache,” a word he coined to describe the unbearable psychological pain arising largely from frustrated psychological needs.
“There is a great deal of psychological pain in the world without suicide,” he said. “But there is no suicide without a great deal of psychological pain.”
He found in death a fascinating subject. “A rich contemplation of death and dying makes that much richer a full participation in life and living,” he once said.
Shneidman is survived by four sons and six grandchildren.
The Los Angeles Times ran an obituary about Shneidman, as well as The Huffington Post.
