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In 1805, Presbyterian minister Samuel Miller wrote that suicide “is generally prompted by the most sordid and unworthy selfishness. It is a crime which sacrifices everything on the altar of individual feeling” (cited in Kushner’s 1989 American Suicide, p. 31). As mentioned in the section on the myth that “suicide is easy,” actress Halle Berry has arrived – independently, I presume – at the same conclusion. In March 2007, media reports quoted her in reference to her suicide attempt, years before, by carbon monoxide poisoning. She said, “I was sitting in my car, and I knew the gas was coming, when I had an image of my mother finding me. She sacrificed so much for her children, and to end my life would be an incredibly selfish thing to do.”
Needless to say, I would urge those interested in the truth about suicide behaviour not to prioritise the comments of Hollywood stars or even Presbyterian ministers, whatever their other merits may be. Nevertheless, there is an aspect to Berry’s comments that hints at something important. Berry did not die by suicide; indeed, she did not attempt to do so because she aborted her attempt. Why did she do this? According to her, and to others who have backed away from suicide attempts, the realisation that she still had ties she could not ignore intervened; in Berry’s case, an image of her mother. She did not die because her connection to her mother prevented her – an illustration of the principle that a fulfilled need to belong can be lifesaving.
Suicide felt selfish to Berry specifically because her connections to others remained intact. But it is a mistake to generalise from those who backed away from suicide attempts to those who stare down the potent force of self-preservation. I think it is almost self-evident that these two groups of people have different states of mind, and yet many people – scholars include – have conflated the two. That is, they take the intact social connections and attendant feelings of selfishness of some suicide attempters to be representative of those who die by suicide. This is a mistake because those who die by suicide have experienced rupture in their social connections, and thus ideas like “my mother would be distressed if I were gone” do not occur to them, not because they are selfish, but because they are alone in a way that few can fathom. Rather, ideas like “my mother will be better off when I am gone” are primary. These are the antithesis of selfishness.
One can understand somewhat the idea that suicide is selfish, in the sense that those left behind are often convinced that those who die by suicide did not consider the impact of their deaths. This is a terrible error. Those who die by suicide certainly do consider the impact of their deaths on others, but they see it differently – as a positive instead of a negative. They are wrong, but it is their view nevertheless.
There is scant evidence that those who die by suicide are more selfish than others. On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that, far from being selfish, suicide decedents (incorrectly) believe their deaths will be a blessing to others.
If the idea that suicide is selfish is mistaken but plausible, the idea that suicide involves excessive self-love is an absurd flight of fancy, unmoored from reality. In this case, the unmooring influence is psychoanalysis. The psychoanalytic corpus on suicide is, in places, obfuscatory and contradictory; in his 1971 book The Savage God, Alvarez wrote, “Psychoanalytic theory offers no simple explanation of the mechanics of suicide. On the contrary, the closer the theory gets to the facts of any case, the more complex it becomes and the less the act is explained” (p. 132). Explaining less with more is not promising for a scientific theory, as many philosophers of science have made clear. In any event, the gist of at least on thread of psychoanalytic thought is that suicide represents a murderous act not against the self per se, but against images of others that have been internalised within the self. For instance, the psychoanalyst Karl Menninger, in Man against Himself (pp. 31-32), describes an adolescent boy who, a few hours after a disagreement with his father, hanged himself in the barn. Menninger asserted, “It must have been his father whom he really wished to kill.” I have met fathers whose sons hanged themselves after a disagreement with them; Menninger’s assertion leaves me in doubt if he had. In this view, suicide is a killing of the “not-me” part of self, in an effort to spare the true self and let it live and thrive. Killing “another” to benefit oneself does seem selfish.
The trouble, of course, is that this interpretation is implausible. We have already seen that most suicides do not have an aggressive character in terms of their method and location choice, and that a primary – possibly the primary – motivation in death by suicide is the mental calculation that the individual’s death will be worth more than his or her life to others. The psychoanalytic view has also spawned some other peculiar notions: for instance, the idea that masturbation and suicide have a deep connection. Had psychoanalysts wished to elucidate “excessive self-love,” masturbation, instead of suicide, seems the wiser target.
There is a psychological state that is important in suicidal behaviour and that resembles selfishness in some ways, but differs in others – namely, cognitive constriction or cognitive deconstruction. According to theorists like my colleague Roy Baumeister, individuals who are experiencing intense negative emotion may react by retreating into a numb state of “cognitive deconstruction.” In this state, attentional focus is narrowed to lower-level awareness of concrete sensations and movements, and of very immediate, here-and-now goals and tasks. Abstract thought and forethought are impaired in an state of cognitive deconstruction, and important consequence of which is reduced inhibitions. Impaired cognition and disrupted impulse control are, according to this viewpoint, a mixture that may facilitate suicidal behaviour (Baumeister, 1990).
Elsewhere in this book, I described a man who wrote “suicide is painless” in the dust on the hood of his car, left it on a bridge, and then disappeared. This was a faked suicide, which was evident even before the ruse was uncovered: A phrase like “suicide is painless” is too abstract (and rings false for other reasons too) for the cognitively constricted mind of the person intent on suicide.
A tragic incident involving a genuine suicide attempt, as well as the death of an innocent motorist, in Atlanta in October 2006 may illustrate the phenomenon of cognitive deconstruction, as well as its distinction from selfishness. A 16-year-old girl was involved in a car crash that killed a woman in another car. At the time of the crash, the girl was text-messaging her intention to die by suicide to another girl, in response to the latter’s refusal to have sex with her. The district attorney was quoted as saying the girl was texting “her imminent threat: “Nine, eight, seven, six, I’m going to do it.”” Shen then crossed the road’s centre line and struck an oncoming car, killing the woman driving it and injuring the woman’s 6-year-old daughter. The girl herself survived the incident and was charged with felony murder, among other things. A highly similar incident occurred in Minnesota in March, 2008: A 16-year-old boy, who had left a suicide note at home, drove head-on into the car of a woman who was approaching from the other direction. In this case, unlike the Atlanta case, the boy died, and the woman was injured but survived.
In a state of cognitive deconstruction, the focus is so narrowed on the here and now that even the most obvious consequences of an action do not register. It is possible that the girl in Atlanta was focused only on her suicide, so much so that the oncoming car was processed not as containing people who would be killed or hurt by the accident, but rather as a means of death, full-stop. That is, the oncoming car was perceived as the means to the end of suicide and not further cognitively processed. Her focus on her goal of suicide may have had paradoxical effects; the more she accelerated toward the oncoming car as it braked, the more momentum transferred to the other car, making it more likely that she would kill or injure those in the other car but not herself.
This girl was self-focused to say the least but many not have been selfish in the full sense of the word. Given the result of her actions, that may seem preposterous to say, but I think it may not be. By way of comparison, consider people who are in intense physical pain – they are definitely self-focused, but even if they do things that seem rash and hurt others, selfishness is not usually the attribution. Rather, the attribution is usually something like desperation induced by the pain.
Yet it is still possible that this girl was a very selfish type after all. It should be recalled that those who die by suicide include a diverse array of personalities. But there is another reason still to question whether selfishness is involved in suicidal behaviour, and it has to do with a syndrome called antisocial personality disorder. As described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the most widely accepted diagnostic manual used by mental health professionals, the disorder is characterised by a long-standing pattern of aggressive behaviour and reckless, impulsive, and out-of-control disregard for others and for rules and norms. In his classic 1941 book The Mask of Sanity, Hervey Cleckley argues for the existence of a different subtype of antisocial personality. Whereas individuals described in the DSM as antisocial are under-controlled and reckless, those described by Cleckley are characterised by controlled and controlling, callous, sometimes charming behaviour. These individuals also show marked emotional detachment (i.e., low anxiety, fake or shallow emotions, immunity to guilt and shame, and incapacity for love, intimacy, and loyalty). The DSM’s antisocials are out of control but not necessarily unfeeling; the “Cleckley psychopath” is very much in control and utterly unfeeling … except, that is, when it comes to himself. One cannot be a Cleckley psychopath and not be selfish – it is part of the core of the syndrome, although one can be classified as antisocial by the DSM and not be selfish. So one group is selfish to the core; the other less so. Which group is more prone to suicidal behaviour?
My colleagues and I studied 133 inmates and found that DSM antisocial characteristics were clearly associated with suicidal behaviour, whereas “Cleckley psychopath” features were not, and in fact were negatively associated with suicidal behaviour, although to a nonsignificant degree (Verona et al., 2001). That is, the most selfish group was relatively immune to suicidal behaviour, whereas the less selfish group was relatively more vulnerable – a pattern of findings that directly contradicts the “suicide is selfish” perspective.
It would be an exaggeration to claim that Cleckley psychopaths never die by suicide, although such deaths are rare. In June 2007 in the Miami area, a suicide and a murder occurred that may have involved one such individual. Helder “Sonny” Peixoto, who had been in several legal and interpersonal disputes throughout a career involving police and security work, was described by many as charming and always in the middle of fashionable parties in the Miami area. He had been dating a Miami model, who was beginning to ponder ending the relationship. This caused Peixoto to become even more possessive and controlling than he had been. It is not clear how the situation escalated to the point of violence, but Peixoto killed his girlfriend with a hammer and left her in his apartment. He then engaged a real estate agent to show him a vacant eleven-story condominium and jumped to his death from the balcony – “calmly,” in the words of the real estate agent.
Several aspects of this case are consistent with that of the Cleckley psychopath. A history of numerous disputes, a need for interpersonal control (e.g., possessiveness of the girlfriend), and charm are all common among such individuals, as are egregious crimes like murder. Moreover, Peixoto’s last moments involved interpersonal exploitation, this time of the real estate agent, whom Peixoto manipulated to be part of the method of his death as well as audience to his death (which may have appealed to the narcissism that is part of this syndrome). Finally, Cleckley psychopaths are relatively fearless characters, and Peixoto was described as facing an eleven-story fall without fear. Cleckley psychopaths are too selfish to die by suicide commonly, but when they do, they do so in very selfish ways, contributing to the “suicide is selfish” myth.
Also, and tellingly, I think, suicides contrived to have an audience are quite rare. In New York magazine in 2008, Phil Zabriskie reported on the fact that, of all those who die by suicide in New York City, approximately 10 percent are from out of town. Why travel to the city for the purpose of suicide? Some of those interviewed for the piece mentioned themes associated with selfishness – wanting an audience and the like – and indeed there are a lot of people in New York. And yet none of the examples in the piece seemed to fit this view. For instance, a young man jumped from a high floor of the inner atrium of a busy hotel in Times Square … but with virtually no audience, because it was 4 A.M. My own take on this phenomenon of “suicide tourism” in places like New York City is the opposite of views that favour grandstanding and a need for an audience. I think it is more likely that people are doing this to make sure that loved ones are not the audience; it is done to spare them at least a little bit of the inevitable anguish. This is not what selfishness and narcissism are about.
My colleagues and I recently solved a mystery involving both antisocial and narcissistic features. The mystery involved the fact that some people desire to die by suicide but do not intend it, whereas others endorse intent to die by suicide but do not desire it. The former group – those who desire but do not intend – are not difficult to understand; indeed, my theory of suicidal behaviour predicts such individuals, because even though numerous people have ideas about suicide, few intend to act on those ideas because of the fearsome obstacles to the act instilled by nature.
By contrast, individuals who intend to die by suicide but do not desire to do so are puzzling. We first wanted to affirm that these people actually exist. In a data set of 330 individuals who were suicidal at the time of assessment, we searched for those who endorsed an index of suicidal intent at high levels, but endorsed an index of suicidal desire at low levels. Sure enough, ten individuals displayed this profile, around 2.5 percent of the total sample of suicidal individuals.
Having affirmed that these individuals exist, we next wanted to characterise them on an array of personality and clinical variables. We compared this group to other individuals on the array of variables, and the mystery was solved – the group who intended suicide but did not desire it obtained high scored on measures of narcissism and antisocial personality features. These individuals were likely “Cleckley psychopaths” who actually did intend suicidal behaviour without desire … in order to run some sort of con on others, much as the “suicide is painless” hedge-fund fraud did. This is precisely the pattern of results that Cleckley would have predicted – “Cleckley psychopaths” never engage in suicidal behaviour unless it is intended to manipulate or deceive others (e.g., to deflect attention from their crimes; to get out of responsibility).
Primarily as a thought experiment, a pretty persuasive argument has been made that the biblical figure of Samson (Judges, chapters 13-16) met criteria for DSM antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Samson appeared to meet six of the seven criteria for ASPD, including, for example, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviour (Samson’s arrest was sought for acts like burning the Philistines’ fields); impulsivity (burning fields); and irritability/aggressiveness (Samson was involved in numerous fights). Samson also engaged in numerous conduct-disordered behaviours, such as fire setting, cruelty to animals, and weapon use. However, he did not come across as a selfish figure. Samson buckled the pillars of the building in which the Philistines were holding him, bringing the building down and causing many deaths, including his own. He seemed prone to negative emotion and impulsive outbursts (Judges 14:19 describes him as “burning with anger,” for example), and these were implicated in many of his possibly antisocial acts, including his self-caused death. By contrast, there is little evidence of Samson’s “emotional detachment.” DSM may have diagnosed Samson with antisocial personality disorder, but Cleckley would not have viewed him as a psychopath, again consistent with the view that DSM antisocials are not necessarily selfish and thus are vulnerable to suicidal behaviour, as opposed to Cleckley psychopaths, whose selfishness inures them to suicidal behaviour. The stories of Samson and Cleckley psychopaths, like other evidence described above, contradict the view that suicide is selfish.