This book is about unique people—some suicidal and some that died by suicide. The book follows the direction of Henry (Harry) Murray: “Never denigrate a fellow human being in fewer than 2000 words.” The main problem facing this book is the one that is the classical issue of psychiatry/psychology itself: the mind–body problem or the admissibility of introspective qualitative accounts as opposed to objective quantitative reports. This debate resonates toWindelband’s (1904) division of two possible approaches to knowledge; that is, between the nomothetic and the idiographic. The nomothetic approach deals with generalizations, using tabular, statistical, arithmetic, demographic, quantitative methods, whereas the idiographic approach involves the intense study of individual(s) (particulars). The latter typically involves the use of qualitative methods, via clinical case study, history, biography, and so on (although at times, as studies of suicide notes show, quantitative methods can also be used). In the study of each unique individual,
personal documents are frequently used; for example, treatment notes, medical reports, diaries, autobiographies, third-party interviews and, if I may, suicide notes. The nomothetic approach is well engrained in suicidology, psychology, psychiatry, and science in general. Keeping in mind that a preface represents a compromise for an author between the press for greater inclusion and the need to restrict oneself to a representative introduction, the idiographic approach may need some further explication.