Synopses & Reviews
This book offers a new approach by combining the disciplines of history, psychology, and religion to explain the suicidal element in both Western culture and the individual, and how to treat it. Ancient Greek society displays in its literature and the lives of its people an obsessive interest in suicide and death. Kaplan and Schwartz have explored the psychodynamic roots of this problem--in particular, the tragic confusion of the Greek heroic impulse and its commitment to unsatisfactory choices that are destructively rigid and harsh. The ancient Hebraic writings speak little of suicide and approach reality and freedom in vastly different terms: God is an involved parent, caring for his children. Therefore, heroism, in the Greek sense, is not needed nor is the individual compelled to choose between impossible alternatives. In each of the first three sections, the authors discuss the issues of suicide from a comparative framework, whether in thought or myth, then the suicide-inducing effects of the Graeco-Roman world, and finally, the suicide-preventing effects of the Hebrew world. The final section draws on this material to present a suicide prevention therapy. Historical in scope, the book offers a new psychological model linking culture to the suicidal personality and suggests an antidote, especially with regard to the treatment of the suicidal individual.
Synopsis
Can examining the difference between the attitude toward suicide in ancient Greek culture and the Bible provide a positive, biblical alternative to the rising suicidal element in modern Western culture? Kalman Kaplan and Matthew Schwartz develop such a biblical psychology in this book by combining the disciplines of history, psychology, and religion.
Ancient Greek society shows an obsessive interest in suicide and death. Kaplan and Schwartz explore the psychodynamic roots of that tendency and contrast it with the biblical stories, which speak little of suicide and approach reality and freedom in terms of a personal, lifegiving God. It is here that Kaplan and Schwartz find a viable solution for the hopelessness so prevalent in Western culture today.
Synopsis
Combines the disciplines of history and psychology to explain the suicidal element in Western culture and how to treat it.
Table of Contents
Foreword to the first edition / David Bakan -- Foreword to the revised and expanded edition / Nicholas Wolterstorff -- The problem of suicide. To be or not to be : the question of suicide -- Suicide in Greco-Roman thought -- Suicide in Judaeo-Christian thought -- Individual case studies from Greek tragedy and biblical narratives. Cycle vs. development : Narcissus vs. Jonah -- Suicide in Greek tragedy -- Suicide and suicide prevention in biblical narratives -- Marriage and family case studies from Greek tragedy and biblical narratives. Couples : polarization vs. growth, Prometheus-Pandora vs. Adam-Eve -- The suicide promoting structure of the Greek family : Oedipus and Electra -- The life-promoting structure of the biblical family : Isaac and Ruth -- Oedipus's curse vs. Jacob's blessing : sibling rivalry and its resolution -- Contemporary confusions about life and death. Kevorkian, Hippocrates, and Maimonides : watching over patients' life and death -- Zeno vs. Job : the biblical case against "rational suicide" -- Conclusion. From tragedy to therapy : the case for biblical psychotherapy.