Japan is a nation saddled with centuries of accumulated stereotypes and loaded assumptions about suicide. Many pronouncements have been made about those who have died by their own hand, without careful attention to the words of the dead themselves. Drawing upon far-ranging creations by famous twentieth- and twenty-first-century Japanese writers and little-known amateurs alike, Kirsten Cather in…
The first step toward identifying risk factors for suicide is to determine how to study this phenomenon. In general, suicidal behavior comprises a diverse set of behaviors, including suicidal thoughts, non-suicidal self-injuries, SAs, and actual death by suicide (4). Other related behaviors are deliberate self-harm, parasuicide, and non-suicidal self-injury (5). Given the significant difference…