A survey of the whole problem of suicide and attempted suicide, presenting the relevant facts and theories against a background of current psychotherapeutic thinking and practice. The book begins with an introduction providing historical and cultural perspectives. The core of the book includes information about suicide numbers, methods and related variables - age, sex, social class - together with cultural and historical comparisons, showing how rates change with other changing features of society. It describes the main theories about causes and motives - sociological, biological, psychodynamic - and combines these perspectives in an account showing among other things the importance of certain patterns of autobiographical memory. It discusses data on behaviour that can be predicted or prevented. The book ends by discussing wider issues: can suicide be rational?; the search for meaning; the aftermath of suicide and how the suicide survivor can be helped.