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Touched by Suicide: A Personal and Psychological Perspective on the Longing for Death and Rebirth
"This book will make one think, feel, sympathize, and understand more deeply. What more could we ask of a book than that?" -James Hollis
Touched by Suicide by Christi Taylor-Jones delves into the very personal, yet archetypal, reasons why people choose to end their life, or think about doing so.
Although depression and mental illness are often cited as motivating factors, Taylor-Jones contends that anger, shame and self-hatred are greater contributors. Anxiety and impulsivity are also implicated. Underlying the suicidal urge, however, is a deep, and often unconscious, longing to end suffering through transformation and rebirth. Lacking the ability to undergo that process symbolically leaves no choice but to enact it literally.
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| | | Praise for Touched by Suicide
"Taylor-Jones’s Touched By Suicide is an insightful and moving exploration of what Albert Camus said is the only perduring philosophical problem: to be or not to be. All of us at times wish to end the suffering life has brought us, perhaps forgetting in the moment that whatever benefit might accrue thereby, one is not present to experience it. This book will make one think, feel, sympathize, and understand more deeply. What more could we ask of a book than that?"
-James Hollis, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst, and author of The Broken Mirror, Hauntings, and other books
"Touched by Suicide: A Personal and Psychological Perspective on the Longing for Death and Rebirth" is a long-awaited addition to the field of Jungian psychology. Not since James Hillman’s groundbreaking book on the topic, Suicide and the Soul, has a Jungian analyst written a book examining the psychology and circumstances that can lead to the impulse to end one’s life and the symbolic—yet often rational—underpinnings of such an urge. Grounded in personal narrative and case examples, no stone is left unturned as the author fearlessly journeys through historical and psychological thought about suicide and suicidality to help us better grasp its contemplation, expression, and transcendence by individuals living in the complexity of our contemporary times."
-Marybeth Carter, Co-Editor of The Spectre of the Other in Jungian Psychoanalysis (2022)
"Touched by Suicide is a welcome and timely book that delves into not only the feeling, experiential level of this mostly tragic occurrence, but also an examination of its history in religions, philosophy, and the psychology underlying it, including shame, trauma, suffering, and sorrow. We are seeing an upward trend in suicides, which is truly disheartening. Christi Taylor-Jones elaborates on her own personal experiences with suicide involving herself and her family members, as well as discussing other examples in her life and practice as a Jungian analyst. I commend her for her comprehensive study of suicide, done in such a personal way that it makes it accessible to everyone. This is everyone’s problem! I know this personally as my bi-polar father with mixed features committed suicide when I was seven, attempting it two years earlier. Even though both his parents had died months earlier, in his suicide note he described his exhaustion, not sleeping for days/months and took one Seconal at a time until he finally found peace in sleep. He said good bye to all of us-- that we would be better off without him. We weren’t, and would carry the tragedy for the remainder of our lives. For fifty years I struggled with depression and knowing the path to death was a thin veil always open, in case I decided to cross over as my father had. A good friend committed suicide on the anniversary of her own mother’s suicide. It took me years of Jungian analysis to close that door. So many people struggle with this themselves or with family or friends, even with aging parents who decide to die. Bringing it to light in Touched by Suicide is a rare and helpful gift."
-Nancy Swift Furlotti, Ph.D. Jungian analyst, and author of Eternal Echoes: Erich Neumann’s Timeless Relevance to Consciousness, Creativity, and Evil, and other books
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| | | About the Author
Christi Taylor-Jones, MA, LMFT is a certified Jungian Analyst and writer, who is a frequent contributor to the journal Psychological Perspectives and other publications over the last thirty years.
Her first book was Midlife Parenting; A Guide to Having and Raising Kids in your 30s, 40s and Beyond. She has also written and presented extensively on the issue of shame, depression and suicide. |
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