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Martyrs’ Last Letters: Are They the Same as Suicide Notes?
Author(s) -
Leenaars Antoon A.,
Park B. C. Ben,
Collins Peter I.,
Wenckstern Susanne,
Leenaars Lindsey
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2009.01275.x
Subject(s) - ambivalence , martyr , interpersonal violence , psychopathology , psychology , interpersonal communication , psychological pain , suicide prevention , poison control , human factors and ergonomics , injury prevention , interpersonal relationship , psychiatry , psychoanalysis , social psychology , medicine , history , medical emergency , archaeology
Of the 800,000 suicides worldwide every year, a small number fall under Emile Durkheim’s term of altruistic suicides. Study on martyrdom has been limited. There has to date, for example, been no systematic empirical study of martyr letters. We examined 33 letters of Korean self‐immolators, compared with 33 suicide notes of a matched sample of more common suicides. An analysis of intrapsychic factors (suicide as unbearable pain, psychopathology) and interpersonal factors (suicide as murderous impulses and need to escape) revealed that, although one can use the same psychological characteristics or dynamics to understand the deaths, the state of mind of martyrs is more extreme, such that the pain is reported to be even more unbearable. Yet, there are differences, such as there was no ambivalence in the altruistic notes. It is concluded that intrapsychic and interpersonal characteristics are central in understanding martyrs, probably equal to community or societal factors. More forensic study is, however, warranted.