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The prologue to Dr Rosen's book describes how, while still a medical student, he came near to committing suicide provoked by his wife's rejection. In the ensuing despair he consulted a psychiatrist-friend who said: ‘You are not a failure. You failed
at marriage’. In the years that followed Rosen became a psychiatrist specializing in depression, then a Jungian analyst, and currently holds the unique position of Professor of Analytical Psychology at Texas A & M University.
His personal trauma effectively contains the essence of his work: the conversion of suicide into what he terms ‘egocide’. By this he means the renunciation of a specific ego ideal - successful husband, lover, mother, businessman, entertainer etc. - which formerly gave life its meaning. To work through the loss of such a narcissistic investment means discovering, at the same time, one's true self: this is his notion of transformation.
Rosen cites Elvis Presley as an example of someone who could not accept loss of a particular status, his status as the ‘King’ of pop. In spite of being a multi-millionaire and national icon, he progressively drank and drugged himself to death. By contrast, Rosen recalls various individuals - Abraham Lincoln, John Stuart Mill, William James - who became suicidally depressed in their early years but battled through to become ‘weller than well’ and men of outstanding achievement. Jung himself is a well-known example, his most creative work developing after the depths of the severe mental illness which followed his break with Freud. Nor is the transformation confined to exceptional individuals. While still a medical student Rosen chose, as a research project, to interview the very few individuals who had survived an attempt at suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
The ten survivors gave various reasons for jumping, but there was a common core feeling of aloneness, alienation, depression, rejection, worthlessness, and hopelessness. Although the ten h