Suicide has reached an alarming level in our society, especially among teenagers and young adults. Based on the author's more than thirty years experience as a clinical suicidologist, this ground-breaking work attempts to redefine our understanding of the true nature of suicide and seeks to help practitioners identify, understand, and treat individuals who seek to kill themselves.

Definition of Suicide presents an original set of ten characteristics common in suicide. Detailed explanations of these "Ten Commonalities of Suicide" create an intimate portrait of the suicidal person's emotions, thought, internal attitudes, desires, actions, and inner stresses. Decoding actual suicide notes constructs a deeper understanding of the driving forces behind the act itself. The author draws valuable lessons from literature, philosophy, psychology, and systems theory, illustrated by classics written by Herman Melville, Stephen C. Pepper, Henry A. Murray, and James G. Miller.

Deeply insightful, this original book is both a major theoretical treatment of self-destruction and a practical first-aid guide to preventing suicidal deaths.

Edwin S. Shneidman (May 13, 1918, York, Pennsylvania ? May 15, 2009, Los Angeles, California[1]) was an American suicidologist and thanatologist. Together with Norman Farberow and Robert Litman, in 1958, he founded the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, where the men were instrumental in researching suicide and developing a crisis center and treatments to prevent deaths.

In 1968, Shneidman founded the American Association of Suicidology and the principal United States journal for suicide studies, Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior. In 1970, he became Professor of Thanatology at the University of California, where he taught for decades. He published 20 books on suicide and its prevention.