In a foreword written for this book, I said that many intelligent people don't know either how common suicide is, or that we can

do something to reduce this frequency. The self-destructive aspect of many social problems—our penal system for example—is daily more apparent. The self-destructiveness of cigarette smoking which is now well known was totally unrecognized at the time I wrote Man Against Himself. We do learn more and more about both the phenomenon of total self-destruction and the means for its reduction, and we owe much of this diffusion of knowledge and interest to Edwin Shneidman, whose persistent calling of our attention to our responsibilities is slowly but definitely having its effect.

Here are two dozen essays by such authorities as Henry Murray, Louis Dublin, Norman Farberow, Norman Tabachnick, Paul Friedman, Lawrence Kubie, and Talcott Parsons. Such representatives guarantee the quality of the essays which Shneidman has collected.