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THE TRAGIC-IRONIC SELFA Qualitative Case Study of Suicide.docx
1. THE TRAGIC-IRONIC SELF
A Qualitative Case Study of Suicide
Steven J. Sandage, PhD
Bethel University
A qualitative case study is described of a man who died from
suicide after
incarceration, which is part of a larger multimethod family case
study. Herme-
neutical phenomenological analyses in this study were based on
personal
archival documents he collected during his incarceration and
interpreted theo-
retically using Kohutian self psychology and McAdams’
narrative theory of
personality. Based on procedures from prior research, texts
were coded for
narrative themes of tragedy and irony, as well as expressions of
selfobject needs
(i.e., mirroring, idealization, twinship). Results depicted
prominent themes of
(a) tragedy, (b) irony, (c) twinship hunger, and (d)
idealization/twinship avoid-
ance. Exploratory analyses suggested some preliminary support
for tragedy
themes being associated with avoidance of idealization and
twinship needs and
irony themes being associated with hunger for mirroring and
twinship. Impli-
cations are considered for psychoanalytic theory and future
empirical research
2. on both suicide and narrative selfhood.
Keywords: psychoanalysis, suicide, personality, narrative, self
psychology
It is precisely the function of tragic myth to convince us that
even the Ugly and Discordant
is an artistic game. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
(1872/2006, p. 104).
Suicide is a major public health problem and a leading cause of
death worldwide.
Globally, nearly one million people die by suicide each year, or
one person every 40
seconds (Joiner, 2005). People die by suicide nearly as often as
by traffic accidents.
Freud’s (1917) theory of suicide as aggression turned against
the self has been followed
by numerous other psychoanalytic theorists who have offered
conceptualizations of
suicide, often based on clinical case studies (Maltsberger &
Weinberg, 2006). Joiner
(2005) has called for in-depth research-based case studies of
those who have died by
suicide that include family and relational interviews to better
understand lives in context.
The present study is a qualitative case study of a Euro-
American man who died by suicide
in late middle-age. A unique and critical feature of this case is
that the man had been
This article was published Online First August 8, 2011.
I appreciate helpful consultation on this project from Dr.
Barbann Hanson and Dr. Brad Strawn.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Steven J. Sandage, PhD, 3949
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incarcerated for a homicide conviction several years before his
release from prison and
eventual death by suicide, and he kept an archive of personal
documents, including family
letters, personal writings, and legal documents, and other
materials he collected during his
incarceration. This archive offers considerable textual data for
understanding the premor-
bid personality development and relational dynamics of a person
who subsequently died
by suicide. This study is also part of a larger family case study
investigating the family and
relational dynamics involved in intergenerational suicide
8. because this man’s adult daugh-
ter died by suicide approximately a decade after he did
(Sandage, 2010). The present
individual case study focuses on the tragic personality
development of the father in this
family case study using the self psychology tradition of
psychoanalytic theory and
narrative personality research methods.
Kohut on Tragedy and Suicide
Kohut’s self psychology was chosen as the primary
psychoanalytic model for interpreting
the data in this study because the individual subject under
investigation in this study: (a)
appeared to exemplify Kohut’s (1977) description of “Tragic
Man” [sic] (p. 132) and (b)
provided data from the general time period of Kohut’s writings.
Kohut (1985) wrote,
“Analysts, beginning with Freud, have felt strongly attracted by
the mystery of tragedy”
(p. 37). Kohut (1977) distinguished two different but
complementary interpretations of
psychological development: (a) “Guilty Man,” who “lives
within the pleasure principle”
(p. 132), and (b) Tragic Man, who “seeks to express the pattern
of his [sic] nuclear self”
beyond the pleasure principle. Obviously, Kohut used
noninclusive gender language, and
when not quoting or directly referring to Kohut’s ideas I will
use the more inclusive term
tragic self (see Greif, 2000). For Kohut, Guilty Man represents
an interpretation of human
development grounded in Oedipal-related inner conflict over
biological drives and the
structural model of the mind (Id, Ego, Superego). In contrast,
9. Tragic Man is a self
psychology construct for the interpretation of human
development focused on the tension
between the nuclear ambitions and ideals of the self and the
inevitable limitations and
failures in life. Kohut chose the term “tragic” because “man’s
[sic] failures overshadow
his successes” in the quest for self-fulfillment (p. 133). For
Kohut, Tragic Man could
represent a range of psychological health from those who
despair and die by suicide under
self-fragmentation to those who authentically face the limits of
human success and find
mature ways to integrate self-cohesion in spite of these
limitations.
In Kohut’s (1977) view, classical Freudian theory was helpful
for understanding
conflictual neuroses but did not adequately address the
emptiness, enfeeblement, frag-
mentation, and “guiltless despair” (p. 238; also see Strozier,
2001) that led to disorders of
the self, particularly narcissistic personality disorder. Tragic
Man represents this narcis-
sistically injured guiltless despair, and Kohut suggested that
late middle age was a time of
particular developmental vulnerability to shame-based despair
and even suicide if a person
realizes that the nuclear ambitions and ideals of their
personality have not been adequately
achieved. In this lengthy quote, Kohut articulates his view of
the midlife risk of suicide
for those who experience their self development as shamefully
tragic.
But while I am thus reluctant to dramatize the establishment of
10. the self by specifying a definite
point at which it is said to be born, I believe that there is, later
in life, a specific point that can
be seen as crucially significant—a point in the life curve of the
self at which a final crucial test
determines whether the previous development had failed or
succeeded. Is young adulthood the
crisis that faces the self with its most severe test? The incidence
of the most destructive
disorders in this realm, the schizophrenias soon after the age of
20, would support this view.
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But I am inclined to put the pivotal point even later—to late
middle age when, nearing the
ultimate decline, we ask ourselves whether we have been true to
our innermost design. This
is the time of utmost hopelessness for some, of utter lethargy,
of that depression without guilt
and self-directed aggression, which overtakes those who feel
that they have failed and cannot
15. remedy the failure in the time and with the energies still at their
disposal. The suicides of this
period are not the expression of a punitive superego, but a
remedial act—the wish to wipe out
the unbearable sense of mortification and nameless shame
imposed by the ultimate recognition
of a failure of all-encompassing magnitude. (p. 241)
Despite Kohut’s substantial contributions to psychological
theory and research on
narcissism, I could find no previous qualitative studies of
suicide directly using self
psychology.
Narrative Psychology, Tragedy, and Irony
McAdams’ (1988, 1993, 2006) psychoanalytically informed
narrative theory of person-
ality is based on research methods that are useful for this study.
McAdams draws on Kohut
and other theorists in constructing a narrative model of the
development of the self.
Whereas Kohut and other psychoanalysts have theorized about
the tragic self, McAdams
developed an empirical strategy for reliably coding tragic and
other narrative themes in
qualitative data. McAdams used Frye’s (1957) often-cited
taxonomy of mythic forms or
narrative plotlines— comedy, romance, tragedy, and irony—in
his empirical studies of the
narrative construction of self-identity. According to McAdams
(1993), tragedy and irony
are the two narrative plots that are pessimistic in tone and most
likely to be correlated with
psychopathology. Tragic plots involve “gods and heroes dying,
sacrificing themselves,
16. and accepting isolation,” and the protagonist is “separated in
some fundamental way from
the natural order of things” (p. 51). There is a sense that the
tragic hero must fall because
of a character flaw or as an extraordinary victim pursued by a
vengeful nemesis. In fact,
Revenge Tragedies represent a subgroup of the tragic genre, and
the tragic protagonist is
often motivated by bitterness and a desire for vengeance
(Lansky, 2005). The basic
message of a tragic plot form is the following: “We are
confronted by inescapable
absurdities in which we find that pain and pleasure, sadness and
happiness, are always
mixed. Beware. The world is not to be trusted. The best
intentions lead to ruin” (p. 52).
Ironic plots involve “shifting ambiguities and complexities in
human existence” with
protagonists who are satirical “fools,” “rogues,” or “antiheroes”
(p. 52). Satirical irony
uses humor focused upon the grotesque or absurd or as a way of
attacking conventional
norms or recording failed attempts to solve the mysteries of
life. The basic message of an
ironic plot form is as follows: “We encounter ambiguities in life
that are larger than we
are and that are, for the most part, beyond our comprehension”
(p. 52). Frye (1957)
indicates that some narratives are an admixture of tragic and
ironic plots and mentions
prisons as a recurring symbolic context of inevitable bondage in
tragic and ironic stories.
McAdams (1988) studied life stories in a nonclinical sample of
midlife adults and
17. found that quantitative codings for tragic and ironic plots were
both negatively correlated
with overall life satisfaction. Tragic plots were negatively
correlated with career satisfac-
tion, and participants scoring low in ego development had
higher ironic plot scores than
those scoring high in ego development. Although these effects
were modest, they do
suggest some vulnerabilities for those whose personal identity
is shaped primarily by
tragic and ironic plots. Tragic and ironic plots are not always
pathological dimensions of
narrative self-identity (McAdams, 2006), and yet the pessimism
of tragic and ironic
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narrative themes could represent dysphoric vulnerabilities of the
self in coping with life
stressors. Moreover, Kohut’s (1977) depiction of the “guiltless
despair” and elevated
suicide risk at midlife for “Tragic Man” (stated above)
22. emphasizes a tragic narrative
reading of the self in cases of suicide risk.
The present case study does not seek to identify premorbid
causal factors in the
suicide of the individual subject under investigation, which
would be an inappropriate
positivistic goal for qualitative research. Rather, the research
questions in this study
involve seeking to identify and understand the following: (a)
tragic and ironic narrative
themes in the subject’s writing, documents, and personal life,
and (b) descriptions of the
subject’s experiences in managing needs for mirroring,
idealization, and twinship. Her-
meneutical qualitative studies work from theory-driven
hypotheses that serve as educated
“guesses” and are used and revised in an iterative process of
interpretation (Cohen, Kahn,
& Steeves, 2000). The present study investigates the following
hypotheses: (a) tragic and
ironic themes will be present in the subject’s personal
documents and biographical data,
(b) there will be evidence of the subject’s difficulties in
managing needs for mirroring,
idealization, and twinship in personal documents and
biographical data, and (c) tragic
themes will be associated with idealization needs and ironic
themes with mirroring needs.
Case Description
[Note: Identifying information has been masked.] Jim was a
Euro-American male who
grew up in a metropolitan area of the Southeast region of the
United States. He was the
23. fifth of six children in a lower middle-class Irish-Catholic
family. He was an average
student, a pretty good musician, and worked in the family
business. Jim got married by
eloping in his early twenties and accepted a sales job that
required moving to the midwest
part of the country, and he was eager to gain distance from his
hometown. He and his wife
had three children—Ann, Laura, and Deb—while they tried to
cope with financial
struggles resulting from instability in Jim’s company.
Jim started drinking heavily early in his marriage and developed
alcohol dependence.
He and his wife argued frequently, reportedly about almost
anything and at verbally
abusive levels. His wife, Mary, struggled with severe depression
and anxiety, for which
she received psychiatric care emphasizing medication. They
divorced after 17 years of
marriage, and Jim had inconsistent contact with his daughters
over the next decade as he
moved around the country pursuing jobs that sounded lucrative
but always turned out
disappointing. In some cases, Jim’s alcoholism led to him being
fired. In other cases, the
jobs were simply not as good as advertised.
In his late 40s, Jim was charged with a robbery-related
homicide to which he pled “not
guilty.” He was convicted and spent several years in prison
before his conviction was
overturned on appeal. As mentioned above, Jim and Ann (the
oldest daughter, in her
midtwenties at the time) corresponded extensively during his
incarceration and she visited
24. him once. Deb had minimal contact with Jim during this time,
exchanging a couple of
letters, and Laura chose to have no contact. Jim did have regular
contact with his family
of origin during and after his incarceration. He also
corresponded with and was visited by
a girlfriend he developed while in prison.
After Jim was released from prison, he continued to live at a
considerable distance
from his children and had minimal contact with them. He had
difficulty establishing
consistent employment, relapsed into alcohol dependence, and
became depressed. In his
midfifties, he died by suicide via exsanguination (i.e., cutting
his wrists with a knife) while
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29. Jim’s suicide was not the only extreme tragedy in this family
system. Within a decade
of Jim’s death, Deb had died of a chronic illness and Ann had
gone through a divorce after
approximately 15 years of marriage. Ann’s life seemed to be
headed in a positive direction
as she completed a graduate degree and explored new
relationships while living with her
mother. However, in her midforties she was involved in an
accident that resulted in her
mother’s death and then died by suicide by poisoning shortly
thereafter. The legal
determination was that Ann probably accidentally killed her
mother during a night terror
episode with the same method of homicide (strangulation) for
which Jim was convicted.
Family interviews suggested Ann’s cat died shortly before this
night terror homicide, and
her mother had “guilted” her mercilessly for her failure to keep
the cat alive (Sandage,
2010). Obviously, the level of tragedy and loss experienced by
this family is hard to
comprehend. At the time of this study, Laura, a key informant,
had managed to maintain
a stable marriage and work history with no history of substance
abuse or mental illness
into her fifties. Laura’s journey of resilience became an
unexpected positive discovery in
this story.
Related Family Case Study Findings
Prior qualitative analyses within this overall family case study
focused on (a) relational
dynamics revealed in 103 letters from Ann to Jim and associated
30. enclosures she had sent
while he was incarcerated which he had saved in his personal
archives (see method section
below), and (b) interviews with Laura and her husband about
their coping processes
related to these family losses. This initial set of analyses
suggested that Ann was often in
a parentified caretaking role with both Jim and her mother, and
her role with Jim during
his incarceration involved substantial levels of mirroring or
validation of his needs for
admiration and emotional support. Ann and Jim both described
symptoms of depression
in their letters to one another. The letters from Ann to Jim also
included themes of death
and suicide with considerable mutual engagement of a mix of
dark humor and tragedy. In
fact, Ann made a seemingly humorous comment in one letter
that Jim should slit his wrists
if he wanted to die quickly, which turned out to be the
extremely uncommon method Jim
used for suicide several years later. They frequently shared
newspaper clippings about
stories of death and suicide. While clinicians have identified (a)
talk about death and
suicide and (b) attraction to prosuicide materials or websites as
risk factors for suicide
(Joiner, Van Orden, Witte, & Rudd, 2009), there has been little
previous evidence of
family members actually communicating about suicide or
sharing documents. Ann’s
description of these death and suicide stories as “funny in a sad
way” also seemed to
describe a combination of ironic and tragic perspectives. She
repeatedly used the words
“weird” and “strange” in her letters to Jim, which suggest a
31. personal pull toward an ironic
focus on confusing ambiguities. A narrative psychology
interpretation of these themes is
that Jim and Ann may have tried to connect through a mutual
attraction to the narrative
forms of irony and tragedy. Ann’s letters to Jim also showed
she tried unsuccessfully to
set a boundary by asking him to limit the death articles he sent,
which raises questions
about Jim’s own personality dynamics. While Kohutian theory
was not used in that initial
study, the theme of mirroring and emphasis on the tragic
suggested this would be a useful
theoretical framework for analysis of Jim’s own writings and
documents from his
archives.
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36. The author became aware of archival documents of
correspondence between Jim and Ann
and negotiated legal access to these archives to study a case of
intergenerational suicide.
This represents an instrumental or critical case sampling
approach to qualitative research
in which participants are chosen “whose experiences are
particularly significant because
of their intensity or irregularity” (Polkinghorne, 2005, p. 141).
Recognizing the sensitivity
of recruiting surviving family participants in this case, local
Institutional Review Board
ethical approval was obtained for this study, including
procedures for contacting family
members through a letter that included informed consent
information.
Document Data Analysis
Documents for the study were drawn from Jim’s personal
archives, and he had designated
that these archives could not be used for publication for a
specific number of years after
his death. That time period had passed. The documents included
papers, personal writings,
and correspondence Jim had saved during his incarceration. The
primary archival sources
of document analysis for this portion of the case study were
copies of 36 letters Jim sent
to relatives and friends and other personal writings, documents,
and articles Jim had saved
while incarcerated.
Hermeneutic phenomenology was the method chosen for
analyzing and interpreting
37. the data in this study following the five-stage process outlined
by Cohen et al. (2000).
Hermeneutic phenomenology differs from the essentialist
phenomenology of Husserl in
viewing the research process as inherently interpretive and
involves “a process of
contextualization and amplification rather than structural
essentialization” (Hein & Austin,
2001, p. 9; Sandage, Cook, Hill, Strawn, & Reimer, 2008).
Using the research of
McAdams (1988, 1993) and his appropriation of Frye (1957),
texts were coded for themes
of tragedy and irony. Texts were coded for tragedy if (a) the
words “tragic” or “tragedy”
were used, (b) a clear example of tragic literature was used
(e.g., Hamlet), or (c) the text
represented one of the following tragic themes based on
McAdams and Frye: (c1)
fatalism, (c2) the inescapability of death or a fall, (c3)
bitterness and vengeance, and (c4)
victimization. Portions of text could receive codings for more
than one theme. Texts were
coded for irony if (a) the words “ironic,” “sarcastic,” “absurd,”
or “satire” were used, or
(b) if reference was made to Jim using wit or humor to cope
with suffering.
Data analysis started with reading and rereading the documents
several times to
become immersed in the data to allow patterns or themes to
emerge (Cohen et al., 2000;
Dahl & Boss, 2005). Initial coding was done by hand by the
author on photocopies of the
original documents. Next, data reduction was conducted to
differentiate texts that were
relevant to the study from texts that were not. Texts associated
38. with themes that were not
directly relevant to the questions of the study were removed
from the analysis. For
example, Jim made many references to his “mood” struggles,
but texts were only retained
if there were other references to themes in this study.
Documents with text relevant to the
themes of the study were identified and entered into Word
software and grouped using
tentative descriptive labels. Word software was chosen because
(a) specific content coding
procedures were set by prior research and (b) it facilitated ease
of peer debriefing review
by expert raters (see below). Then, like categories were merged
within overarching
themes, and texts within each theme were compared and
differentiated for internal
consistency, which represents the phenomenological method of
tacking back and forth
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43. between part and whole. Finally, exemplar passages were
identified to illustrate the
themes.
For exploratory purposes, texts were also coded for expressions
of selfobject needs for
mirroring, idealization, and twinship. Research on the
Selfobject Needs Inventory (SONI;
Banai, Mikulincer, & Shaver, 2005) was used as a
hermeneutical grid for coding
categories. The developers of the SONI sought to differentiate
hunger and avoidance
dimensions of each selfobject need, although their factor
analysis yielded five dimensions
and could not differentiate avoidance of idealization and
twinship. Therefore, we coded
data for the expression of the same five dimensions of
selfobject needs from the SONI: (a)
mirroring hunger (need to be admired or recognized for
accomplishments), (b) mirroring
avoidance (not caring about admiration or recognition), (c)
idealization hunger (need to
admire certain idealized figures, goals, or values), (d)
idealization/twinship avoidance
(disappointment in authority figures, ideals and values or lack
of interest in similarity to
others), and (e) twinship hunger (need to feel similar to and
connected to others). To
enhance the trustworthiness of the selfobject need coding
procedure, peer debriefing was
used by consulting with two selected researchers who reviewed
the data and correspond-
ing codings. Both were licensed psychologists with a PhD in
clinical psychology from an
APA-approved program and had received psychoanalytic
training in self psychology. The
44. Kappa coefficient was calculated as an index of interrater
reliability across categories, and
the Kappa for selfobject need codings of .87 reflects
“substantial agreement” (Viera &
Garrett, 2005). Differences in coding were discussed, which led
to several changes in
coding of particular texts.
Results
Narrative Themes of Tragedy: I’m More of a Fatalist
A total of 20 texts were coded for tragedy, including 17 of Jim’s
own letters or writings
and three literary texts he saved during his incarceration. Texts
were coded in each of the
tragedy themes described in the Method section: (a) fatalism,
(b) the inescapability of
death or a fall, (c) bitterness or vengeance, (d) victimization.
Exemplar passages are
provided below. It is worth noting that Jim frequently used
pause punctuation (i.e., “. . .”)
in his letters between thoughts he was expressing. In
representing quotations from his
writings, pause marks will be original unless bracketed.
Misspellings from the original
documents are retained.
Fatalism
According to Frye (1957), tragic narratives often include the
“existential projection of
fatalism” (p. 222), and “all tragedy exhibits the omnipotence of
an external fate” (p. 209).
Jim described himself as a “fatalist” and repeatedly expressed
his limited control over his
45. life and the negative future events he expected to experience. In
a letter to a brother, he
mentioned receiving a single letter from his daughter Deb:
but like so many things in our lives, her writing to me is just
one of the many that I have no
control over. We’ll just have to wait and see what she decides to
do . . . Which is why I didn’t
mention it to you or Mother or Dad in the first place. Mother
especially gets her hopes up
about “things” over which she has no control, and when “they”
don’t turn out the way she’d
wish they would . . . well, as you know, she’ll sit and worry
herself about it . . . unless she’s
changed a great deal in recent years. That’s just not the way I
am though; I’m more of a
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50. In other letters to siblings, he also expressed the following
fatalist sentiments:
There are a lot of unpleasant things in life that we all know are
coming and have to be dealt
with, but that still doesn’t mean that we’re going to like it.
But one day is pretty much the same as any other here, so it’s
not likely that my mood or
outlook are going to be improved upon with additional time . . .
abandonment is very
unpleasant.
The latter text mentioning “abandonment” also expresses the
victimization theme
consistent with the tragic sense of the protagonist excluded
from society (Frye, 1957).
Inescapability of Death or a Fall
Jim’s writings and collected literature showed he was
preoccupied with death and the
tragic theme of the need for the protagonist to fall (Frye, 1957).
As mentioned above,
findings from the family case study indicated Jim regularly sent
Ann newspaper clippings
of stories of people dying through tragic accidents, which Ann
called “The Death and
Dying Department.” Among the newspaper clippings he saved
was an article about a
couple who jointly died by suicide while in the courtroom to
receive sentencing for drug
charges. Their lawyer described them as “acquiescent, maybe
almost resigned to carry out
this tragic act.” A page torn out of a novel depicts a tragically
51. romantic interpretation of
the hero’s fall into suicide, “One tear, one kiss, outweighs his
ruin. He believes she has
sold him to his enemy, yet he kills himself because he hears she
is dead.” Jim also saved
an article titled “Gods and Heroes of Ancient Europe,” which
included the classic tragic
statement “a violent death is the necessary crowning of the
hero’s career.” Two other less
serious writings by Jim connect tragedy and a fall. In a letter to
his brother he mentions
his sister-in-law falling off a ladder:
Everybodies heard about how misfortunes befall people. Well,
obviously that’s what hap-
pened to poor Sandra while on the ladder [. . .] You painted a
picture of a devotion to duty that
far exceeded the ordinary [. . .] that was needed to prove
conclusively just how this terrible
tragedy occurred.”
Jim also saved a poem we wrote about a man who goes skiing
with his children, starts
going too fast, and breaks his leg. He concludes with the
following:
Three morals emerge from this overlong tale, that might aide
you while traveling lifes weary
trail; Don’t readily break any long held conviction, which could
possibly lead to a long term
restriction. Permit your children mistakes of their own; no need
to instruct them in how to
break a bone. And remember, this adage applys to us all, that
old one, concerning our pride
and our fall.”
52. Bitterness and Vengeance
Unforgiveness or the desire for vengeance is a central theme of
many tragedies, with
revenge-tragedies even forming a subgenre (Frye, 1957; Lansky,
2005). Jim repeatedly
mentioned his “bitterness” and desire to get even in letters to
family and friends. To a
brother, he wrote, “I grow more and more bitter and become
increasingly cranky . . . but
that’s the way life in ‘the slam’ is . . . at least it is for me.” To a
sister, he said, “Try not
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to worry, though I know you do, believe me, I’ll make it . . . if
it’s only to get back at some
of these bastards.” In a letter to a friend, he connects his anger
and bitterness to a
self-assessment of his own temperament:
I can’t believe that you want to hear the unending pissing and
57. moaning that comes from me,
and as concentrated as my thoughts have become I’ve little else
to offer. I’m angry and bitter,
as you well know, and realize too that I dwell upon it. Being a
philosopher you know how very
difficult it is at times to remain philosophic. Of the four
temperaments assigned to us by the
‘Ancients’ I’m afraid I tend toward the bilious and melancholic
far moreso than to the
phlegmatic and sanguine. I wish it were otherwise, but it ain’t
so. Tough shit, huh? So much
for the humors.
Victimization
Tragic stories typically depict the protagonist as an
“extraordinary victim” (McAdams,
1988, p. 92), and Kohut described the “guiltless despair” of
Tragic Man. Jim articulated
a recurring sense of victimization and abandonment in his
letters. To his girlfriend in
separate letters, he wrote the following:
I haven’t really learned anything more than I knew when we
talked last. Unless, of course, you
count finding out— once again—that those you’ve depended
upon have let you down, and
have no concept even, of how far. Tough goddamned old life,
ain’t it? Oh well; have a nice
day!
To a nephew, respectively, he wrote the following:
I don’t view these happenings as being MY case at all, but more
along the lines of the
STATES case. I feel pretty much like your everyday, typical,
58. innocent bystander that’s getting
screwed without first being kissed . . .. and doesn’t enjoy it one
damned bit.
Narrative Themes of Irony: I Fancy Myself a Wit
A total of 23 texts were coded for irony, including 21 texts from
Jim’s letters and two from
his own writings. Only three irony codings occurred in the same
paragraph as a tragedy
coding. Jim literally uses the words “irony” and “ironical” to
describe his situation, and
he repeatedly mentions his efforts to use sarcastic humor and
satire to cope with the
absurdity of his incarceration. He explains in letters to a friend:
It would be difficult to pin-point why my sense of humor has
taken the turn that it has (perhaps
it’s the conditions and requirements that have been imposed
upon me, huh?), but anyway I
continue in trying to view what’s happened, and the slowness of
what’s not happening, in the
“brightest” possible light. A small occurrence that would once
have slid past me unnoticed is
now often picked up on instantly, bringing a smile to me that’s
frequently the result of the
irony of my situation.
My innate good humor has bore me along well in this insane
situation so far [. . .]
Satirical comment is rare in here.
To a brother, we wrote the following in separate letters:
Time passes quicker for me if I “act the fool,” “fool around,”
“play the fool” . . . that sort of
59. thing . . . you know . . . do trifling things that verge on being
ridiculous or absurd . . . a general
silliness and nonsense approach to life around me . . . I spend a
lot of time writing nonsense
verse and limericks that I later include in my weekend letters to
[Ann]. It’s a silly thing to do,
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I know, but it’s surprising how fast I make the time pass while
concentrating my thoughts
upon something trite and trivial. It has some therapeutic value
as well, in that it blocks out
unpleasant thoughts that are always, always, and ever trying to
sneak in and depress me.
One might have thought I’d have adjusted better by now and
grown more philosophic toward
my situation or, at least, maintained this façade of sarcastic
humor just a bit longer. But I
haven’t.
64. To his girlfriend, he wrote the following:
Most all of us have different opinions about what constitutes
sanity, and whether or not it’s
even desirable. Then once we’ve settled upon what it is and if it
is, the question of how to go
about maintaining it is to approach each day with humor and
keep on trying to look for the
bright side of nuclear devastation.
Selfobject Themes
Table 1 shows overall codings for selfobject needs, as well as
codings for tragedy and
irony themes that occurred in the same paragraph as selfobject
need codings. (Note: Some
codings for tragedy and irony themes were not in the same
paragraph as selfobject need
codings.)
Mirroring – Approach
There were 10 texts coded as representing an approach or
hunger for mirroring. For
example, in a letter to his brother he explains his pattern of
sharing humor in letters with
Ann:
When I write to my daughter each weekend I’m nearly always in
a good mood, and even if
I’m not I often try to cover up the fact. The nonsense beginning
of this letter is pretty much
an example of the type and style of “stuff” that include in her
letters every week. Sometimes,
when I’m struck by creativity, or more likey an excess of the
drivels, compounded by a case
65. of the giggling snickers, this kind of trite “crap” that I spread
about, might go on and on, page
after page, for as many as six, seven, or even eight or nine
pages. Oh, it makes no sense, I
admit, but it does serve to keep me busy and she claims to enjoy
reading it. This, I suspect
is more due to her good breeding than it is to her truthfulness.
Mirroring – Avoidance
Nine texts were coded as avoidance of mirroring, most being
similar to items from the
SONI expressing a lack of concern for what others think of him.
For example, in a letter
to his brother he says the following:
Table 1
Selfobject Need Codings and Tragedy and Irony Narrative
Theme Codings
Selfobject needs Total codings Tragedy Irony
Mirroring – approach 10 1 6
Mirroring – avoid 9 1 1
Twinship – approach 23 3 8
Idealization – approach 6 0 1
Idealization/twinship – avoid 28 6 3
Note. This table only includes tragedy and irony narrative
theme codings that were in the same paragraph as
selfobject need codings.
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I don’t know what crawled into me yesterday afternoon, in that
last paragraph there, I must
have just felt like preaching for a spell oh well, who cares what
I think anyway? . . .. . . I’m
not all that certain if I care myself or not.
Twinship – Approach
Twenty-three texts were coded for approach or hunger for
twinship. Jim frequently
expressed a desire to be understood and to share a sense of
similarity with family and
friends, particularly his daughter Ann. To a friend he wrote the
following:
Quite often I find myself wishing that I could share “this or
that” experience with some
specific person or other, a person that would perhaps enjoy, or
just simply understand maybe,
what it was that I was wanting to share just then. They would
know, of course, what it was
that had made me-think of them at just that moment . . . and
why. In the long run I suspect
that most of us are more interested in being understood than we
71. let on that we are; I’d imagine.
But then too, a sharing with others is about the only way there
is to actually reach any kind
of an understanding. Sharing in this sense though, requires
communication, and unfortunately
this is the area in which I most severely fall down.
Idealization – Approach
Only six texts were coded for approach or hunger for
idealization, and two of those texts
were Jim’s reminiscence on his idealism in adolescence. In a
letter to his sister he
expressed his frustration over his incarceration and the slow
process of appeal:
I try not to dwell upon the injustice of my own situation, and
constantly keep bolstering myself
with an almost childlike belief that “the system” will eventually
right itself, correct its errors,
and release me. Obviously there’s absolutely nothing else that I
can do . . . .
Idealization/Twinship – Avoidance
Twenty-eight texts were coded for avoidance of idealization or
twinship, making this the
dimension of selfobject needs (based on the SONI) receiving the
highest number of
codings. Many of these texts involved Jim expressing
disappointment and strong negative
views related to political and religious leaders and his own loss
of ideals in those domains.
Qualitative results in the present study also support the factor
analytic findings of Banai
et al. (2005), suggesting that idealization and twinship
72. avoidance are often closely related,
such as when Jim says in a letter, “Political and religious
personalities aim at a constit-
uency that doesn’t include me.” In separate letters to a brother,
he further describes his
religious and political outlook:
Among “those things” that I’m in disagreement with the
majority of people, I suppose, is my
overall attitude about ufo’s. I don’t believe in them for the same
reason that I don’t believe
in any of popular world wide religions. If there were a god, or
two, or three, or however many
. . . . what difference does it make . . .. or any “life form” of
sufficient intellect ‘out there
somewhere in that great beyond’ . . .. whether it be little green
men, gods, Martians, or
what-have-you, . . .. why in this blue-eyed world would they
want to get mixed-up with the
likes of us??? As a group we’re really not a very admirable
bunch, and to go to any bother
sorting through us to find those few that do show some little
promise . . .. well, why bother?
And for what reason? To give us a second chance? To do what
then? To save us maybe? From
what/for what? To steal from us? To conquer us? But I always
come back to the same cynical
question; WHY? To my way of thinking anything with that kind
of power, intelligence,
abilities, and so forth, has nothing to gain from ANYTHING on
this planet. And as far as gods
go, well, that’s pie-in-the-sky for being a good-boy, and I don’t
believe in free-lunches,
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regardless of how attractively they happen to be packaged.
Ufo’s and religion both make for
good stories, that’s for sure, and for those zillions of folks that
really get into those forms of
entertainment, or ‘get-off’ on the mysterious, occult, beyond
human understanding sort of
‘things’, well, that’s just fine with me, they can just go right
ahead without ever having to
worry about me interrupting them. All I ask from them is that
same consideration.
As people become ever more suspicious of government,
religion, or for that matter any group
or body that insists upon telling them what’s good or bad for
them, what they should or
shouldn’t be doing, people are also beginning to question all
these “modern advancements”
that have been made in health care as well. But there I go again,
off on one of my, “Let’s give
the establishment hell!” campaigns that you no doubt get weary
of reading.
78. Tragedy, Irony, and Selfobject Needs
As shown in Table 1, tragedy theme codings that occurred in the
same paragraph as
selfobject need codings were typically proximal to
idealization/twinship avoidance. In
contrast, irony theme codings that occurred in the same
paragraph as selfobject need
codings were typically proximal to mirroring approach and
twinship approach.
Discussion
The qualitative findings in this study depict a case study of a
“tragic man,” to use Kohut’s
term. While case study design does not facilitate
generalizability to other cases, these
results do offer some initial support for (a) Kohut’s theorized
connection between tragic
selfhood and suicide risk, and (b) McAdams’ theory of tragic
and ironic narrative plots
and selfhood. The results can also contribute to literatures on
both suicidality and
psychoanalytic understandings of narrative psychology and
selfobject needs.
First, this case study data adds to existing literature on suicide
by offering a description
of some of the personality functioning of Jim several years prior
to his suicide. As a
qualitative study, the purpose is not to interpret causal factors
related to Jim’s suicide.
Nevertheless, this is a case with a confluence of empirically
supported elevated risk factors
for suicide, including alcoholism, prior incarceration, probable
depressive symptoms,
79. prior divorce, and lack of religiosity. In combination with the
findings from the family
case study (Sandage, 2010), these results add to research
suggesting that a long-term
preoccupation with tragic and morbid themes and suicide may
increase the risk of
suicidality (Joiner, 2005). Joiner theorizes such cognitive
preoccupations may represent
forms of mental practice or rehearsal for suicide. The results of
this study interpreted
within the framework of narrative psychology also fit with
Shneidman’s (2001) thesis that
“suicide is a drama of the mind” (p. 202).
Joiner also presents data that assortative (i.e., nonrandom)
relating might contribute to
the clustering of suicides among people who share such
preoccupations. That is, people
who share an interest in suicide might find it reinforcing to
relate with one another and
habituate to the idea of suicide through frequent discussions.
This fits with the frequent
expression of twinship hunger that Jim expresses about his
relationship with Ann in his
letters to family members. The fact that Jim died by suicide
using the rare method Ann
recommended (albeit humorously) and, before her own suicide,
Ann enacted an accidental
homicide in the same method for which Jim was convicted
contributes to elements in this
family story seeming like a tragic drama.
Tragedy emerged as a prominent theme in the data, and Jim’s
writings and personal
documents evidenced multiple texts across all four subthemes of
tragedy coded in this
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study: (a) fatalism, (b) inescapability of death or a fall, (c)
bitterness and vengeance, and
(d) victimization. Jim even refers to himself as a “fatalist.”
While prior studies in narrative
psychology have measured tragic themes in life stories, the
results of this study show a
case in which these themes not only emerge in the subject’s
personal writings but in
literary documents and fragments the subject saved while
incarcerated. This suggests Jim
may have been motivated to construct an intersubjective field of
tragedy that served to
validate his experience of a tragic life narrative. From the
perspective of self psychology,
this may have reflected a desire in Jim to overcome feeling
alienated from connection to
others.
The results of this study are also suggestive of a potential
85. connection between tragic
themes in narrative selfhood and deficits in selfobject needs for
idealization and twinship.
The exploratory analyses found codings for tragedy that
emerged in the same paragraph
as coding for selfobject needs were most frequently proximal to
idealization/twinship
avoidance. He mentions a lack of ambition, difficulty making
decisions, and starting
numerous projects he did not expect to finish, all of which
could be interpreted by self
psychologists as symptoms of goal instability and problems
with idealization. Jim also
repeatedly voices a loss of political and religious ideals and
cynicism about political and
religious leaders and followers. And this fits with Frye’s
description of the “existential
projection of fatalism” that is embedded within tragic narratives
(p. 222). In terms of
religiosity, Jim does not just disbelieve but expresses his
cynicism in questioning how
gods or other life forms would gain anything from relating to or
redeeming humanity.
Politically, he is not simply ambivalent but repeatedly expresses
anger and a desire to
“give the establishment hell.” His basic orientation toward
ideals and values is consistent
with McAdams’ (1988) summary of tragedy: “We are
surrounded by inescapable absur-
dities . . . Beware. The world is not to be trusted. The best
intentions lead to ruin” (p. 52).
Jim also repeatedly expresses avoidance of twinship in relation
to ideals, for example
saying “political and religious personalities aim at a
constituency that doesn’t include me.”
86. He writes in another letter, “Sorry, prison hasn’t helped in
strengthening my belief in my
fellow man, much less in any of his [religious beliefs].” The
cultural and religious interests
he does express in his writings involve a fascination with the
history of relatively obscure
ancient pre-Christian European groups with no obvious
constructive integration of that
material in his adult psychological functioning. From the
perspective of self psychology,
traumatic frustrations or disappointments in selfobject needs
contribute to a lack of
self-cohesion and difficulty forming both (a) realistic and
mature ideals and convictions
(Silverstein, 2007) and (b) a sense of social integration (Greif,
2000). Jim states in his
letters that he had strong opinions about politics and felt the
American people were being
“duped” by political leaders and the media, and he indicated a
preference for a lack of
government regulation and for citizen independence. Ann and
Jim appeared to engage in
mutual validation of disappointment in the world at large and a
mistrust of authority
figures, at least during Jim’s incarceration (Sandage, 2010).
Perhaps this lack of confi-
dence in authority figures and generalized others impeded their
capacities to seek mental
health treatment and other sources of social integration. In
Jim’s case, his stigmatized
status as an ex-felon probably added to his difficulties in social
integration at the time of
his suicide.
The data reveal the complexity or ambivalent nature of
selfobject hunger and avoid-
87. ance. At points Jim expresses a hunger for twinship, while at
other times he presents
himself as unlike other people. He both seeks mirroring and
expresses a lack of care about
it. It is noteworthy that his avoidance of twinship is most often
paired with avoidance of
idealization, while his hunger for twinship seems to be a
longing to feel understood.
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Perhaps this reveals a dilemma about twinship needs for those
who are avoiding ideal-
ization needs, that is a desire to not be “like the masses”
(avoidance of twinship) while
also experiencing a need to feel intersubjectively understood
(hunger for twinship).
Irony also emerged as a prominent narrative theme in Jim’s
writings. He refers to his
“situation” of incarceration as ironic and he describes himself
as “a wit.” Frye (1957)
92. notes the movement from tragedy to irony in many narratives
involves the restriction of
freedom for the protagonist who is more a “random victim” (p.
41) than an exceptional
person. Both tragedy and irony focus on fate and the limits of
human agency. Jim
described feeling very limited power as he experienced his first
incarceration at midlife on
a conviction he disavowed.
In his work on tragedy, Nietzsche (1872/2006) spoke of “the
comic as the artistic
delivery from the nausea of the absurd” (p. 27). Jim describes
using humor, nonsense
writings, sarcasm, and cynicism as coping mechanisms for
dealing with the “absurdity” of
his incarceration and slow process of appealing his conviction.
Jim describes his use of
sarcastic humor as a “façade.” From a psychoanalytic
perspective, this suggests he used
irony and humor as defense mechanisms against dysphoric
thoughts and emotions (e.g.,
depression, anger). This is revealed when he explains his
“ridiculous and absurd” behavior
in a letter:
it’s surprising how fast I make the time pass while
concentrating my thoughts upon something
trite and trivial. It has some therapeutic value as well, in that it
blocks out unpleasant thoughts
that are always, always, and ever trying to sneak in and depress
me.
Freud (1905) described humor as “the highest of these defensive
processes,” (p. 233)
and Vaillant’s (1993) research led him to include humor among
93. the most mature defense
mechanisms. However, Vaillant also distinguished humor from
both dissociation (i.e.,
simply distracting from what is painful) and wit (i.e., an
unconscious shift of emotions
from a dangerous toward a safer target). While laughter can be
therapeutic, it can also be
a defense against shame and contempt toward self or others. As
quoted in the introduction
to this study, Kohut (1977) linked some suicides at midlife not
to guilt but to a “sense of
mortification and nameless shame” (p. 241) related to the
failures of the defeated self.
Morrison (1989) has interpreted Kohut as suggesting shame is
“a central affective
experience of Tragic Man” (p. 68), though he also argues that
the conscious experience of
shame requires a certain level of self-cohesion. Jim’s writings
do not offer explicit
evidence that he was conscious of shame, so unconscious shame
may have motivated his
use of irony and humor, but such an interpretation is
speculative.
Kohut (1966) viewed genuine humor (along with empathy,
creativity, and wisdom) as
evidence of transformed narcissism and aids a person “in
achieving ultimate mastery over
the demands of the narcissistic self, that is, to tolerate
recognition of his [sic] finiteness in
principle and even of his impending end” (p. 267). He
considered it a sign of maturity to
hold “a touch of irony toward the achievements of individual
existence” (p. 269) but was
suspicious of the authenticity of the excessive use of humor. For
Kohut, there was also a
94. crucial distinction between humor and sarcasm, with the latter
representing “an archaic
form of self process” and a defensive posture that can mask
anger, envy, and fragility of
selfhood (Strozier, 1987, p. 52). Kohut explains that sarcasm
“occurs in consequence of
the lack of idealized values; it is an attempt to minimize the
significance of narcissistic
limitations through the hypercathesis of a pleasure-seeking
omnipotent self” (p. 269).
Sarcasm may also represent a passive-aggressive motivation of
attack on others. In
contrast, humor is less distorting of reality, more self-reflective,
and indicates an accep-
tance of personal limitations without biting self-contempt.
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99. responses potentially enhance the self. Humor could be a form
of exhibiting the self and
may express a hunger for mirroring. While the present study
should be considered
exploratory, it is interesting that the majority of codings for
irony themes that occurred in
the same paragraphs as codings for selfobject needs were
related to approach motivations
for mirroring and twinship. These results are suggestive for
future research that the use of
irony and humor might be more closely associated with those
desire for confirming or
supportive others, whereas the use of tragedy might relate more
strongly with avoidance
of idealization and twinship.
It would be inappropriate to make diagnostic speculations based
on qualitative and
psychobiographical data. However, based on a self psychology
framework, Jim’s chronic
alcoholism, career instability, and relational problems suggest
that he may have struggled
with a lack of self-cohesion or some form of self disorder, even
outside the context of his
incarceration. On the other hand, Jim’s letters to friends and
family members also show
occasional signs of self-awareness of his own limitations,
interpersonal warmth, and
generosity in mirroring others. For example, he acknowledges
his difficulty in commu-
nicating his feelings to others. In one letter, he is effusive in
telling Ann he is proud of her
career achievement while also acknowledging his past sarcasm
might make it difficult to
know when he is being serious. He also writes reflectively in a
letter to a sibling, “The
100. older that I get, the more that I find myself laughing more and
more at ME, and less and
less at ‘the other guy,’ because I can see things now that I once
couldn’t . . . or wouldn’t.”
These results highlight an advantage of qualitative analysis of
personal documents,
namely that the complexity of human personality and behavior
can be revealed in ways
that transcend simple categories of health and pathology.
The present case study is obviously limited to investigating the
personal documents of
a single Euro-American male from a period of time several
years before his suicide. We
do not have data that are more proximal in time to Jim’s
suicide. Interviews with family
members can provide some triangulation of data but cannot
fully take the place of the
subject’s personal meaning. It would be helpful to have other
qualitative psychological
autopsy studies investigating themes of tragedy and irony in the
documents of multiple
individuals close to the time of their suicides. Moreover,
longitudinal studies of suicide
risk might consider including measures of attraction to tragedy
and irony, as well as the
collection of documents related to suicide.
As a hermeneutic phenomenological study, interpretations were
also based primarily
on the theoretical frameworks of Kohut and McAdams. Future
qualitative studies of
suicide might use other theoretical frameworks, such as Joiner’s
interpersonal theory of
suicide (Joiner et al., 2009). Joiner’s theory has garnered
considerable empirical support
101. and is similar to self psychology in placing a strong emphasis
on the need for belong-
ingness. In Joiner’s model, suicide risk increases as
belongingness is reduced and
burdensomeness and self-harm increase. We do not have clear
evidence in this study that
Jim was troubled by feeling a burden to others during his
incarceration, however family
data (Sandage, 2010) are suggestive that some family members
distanced from him
postincarceration to avoid him becoming a burden.
It is challenging to summarize a psychoanalytic formulation of
this case study given
the staggering levels of tragic and complicated loss. In the prior
family case study
(Sandage, 2010), the data suggested Jim and Ann had an
emotionally fused relationship
in which Ann played a prominent mirroring and caretaking role
for Jim, although it was
reciprocal to some degree. The relational theme of mirroring in
that qualitative study was
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106. exemplified in Ann’s statement “it’s strange how we think
alike,” which she voiced in
several different ways in her letters to Jim while he was in
prison. Based on self
psychology, data from the present study also suggests Jim had a
strong hunger for
twinship and that he repeatedly expressed this selfobject need in
relation to Ann. They
explicitly shared a “twin-like” preoccupation with morbid
themes and the topics of death
and suicide. This fused father– daughter mirroring and twinship
between Jim and Ann was
part of a historical triangle with Ann’s mother (Jim former
wife). In the end, Ann failed
in her role of parentified caretaker of her mother and father and
expressed rage at both
(however consciously).
In contrast to Kohut’s normalization of needs for twinship,
Stolorow (2007) regards
such longings as “reactive to emotional trauma, with its
accompanying feelings of
singularity, estrangement, and solitude. When I have been
traumatized, my only hope for
being deeply understood is to form a connection with a brother
or sister who knows the
same darkness” (p. 49). Family case study data suggested Ann
may have been traumatized
by Jim’s trial and her visit of him in prison, and afterward she
had night terrors and dreams
of cats dying which she shared with him in letters. Did the later
death of Ann’s cat and
her mother’s shaming verbal abuse of her failure as a caretaker
107. activate the unconscious
disintegration products of a narcissistic rage and trauma-based
reenactment of violence?
Ironically, this final tragic twinship between Ann and her father
was foreshadowed
decades before in their private intersubjective musings.
Conclusion
This qualitative case study of the personality dynamics of a man
who died by suicide has
used hermeneutic phenomenological methods drawing on
Kohutian self psychology and
McAdams’ narrative psychology of selfhood. The results are
suggestive that themes of
tragedy and irony can be conceptually integrated with selfobject
needs (i.e., mirroring,
idealization, and twinship) in future research on suicide and
narrative selfhood.
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