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Women professionals, including physicians (Steppacher, 1974; Pitts, 1979; Sakinofsky, 1980), medical students (Pepitone-Areola-Rockwell, 1981), psychologists (Steppacher, 1973), chemists (Li, 1969), pharmacists (Steppacher, 1973), and the intellectually gifted (Shneidman, 1971) have suicide rates from two to four times the rate of the general female population. Although women professionals suicide at about the same frequency as their male colleagues, male professionals have suicide rates that are similar to the general male population (Shneidman, 1971; Council on Scientific Affairs, 1987; Rich and Pitts 1979). In one community survey, 47% of women physicians reported experiencing suicidal feelings, as did 58% of female psychologists (Clayton, 1992).
The paradox of why a successful professional wants to end her life perplexes not only her acquaintances but often the people who feel closest to her. The confusion grows out of mistaking a facade for the deeper psychological structure it hides. For these women a vast chasm separates the outer persona from the inner psyche. The wide disparity between that which shows and that which is hidden shapes these women's psychologies. This disparity also imprisons them.
I wrote this chapter in response to two female physicians' suicidal crises. They never knew one another, but these physicians were close in