Sigmund Freud Committed Suicide

  • Posted by Matthew
  • October 18, 2007

Yes, it’s true. After writing about how we still practice ‘blood rites’, it got me wondering who are some of the more well known victims. These are some of the people that either cracked under the weight or were just done with living and took their own lives. Who knows what caused these people break. I guess the Russian poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky, who committed suicide in 1930 summed it up best, “I don’t recommend it for others”.

  • River Phoenix, American actor, 1993 he was 23 years old
  • Anna Nicole Smith, American actor/model
  • Chris Farley, American comedian
  • Jimi Hendrix, American musician
  • John Belushi, American comedian, 1982, age 33
  • Janis Joplan, American musician, 1970 she was 27 years old
  • Elvis Presley, 1977, drug overdose
  • Dave Garroway (1982), original host of NBC’s Today Show
  • Forrest Howard Anderson (1989), Governor of Montana
  • Edwin Armstrong (1954), U.S. inventor of FM radio; jumped from a 13th floor window believing FM was a failure
  • Kurt Cobain (1994), Lead singer of the band Nirvana, gunshot to head
  • Dorothy Dandridge (1965), American singer and actress, first black woman nominated for Academy Award as Lead Actress
  • Gilles Deleuze (1995), French philosopher, jumped from apartment window
  • Nick Drake (1974), British singer-songwriter, overdose
  • George Eastman (1932), inventor of the Eastman Kodak Camera
  • Sigmund Freud (1939), founder of psychoanalysis (lethal dose of morphine)
  • Kurt Gödel (1978), German logician and mathematician (refused to eat any food)
  • Spalding Gray (2004), American playwright, drowned in Atlantic after jumping off Staten Island Ferry
  • Ernest Hemingway (1961), American novelist, shotgun blast to the head
  • Michael Hutchence (1997), lead singer of Australian rock band INXS
  • Edward Allen Hannegan (1859), U.S. Congressman from Indiana
  • Michael D. Harter (1896), U.S. Congressman from Ohio
  • Richard Jeni (2007), comedian
  • Samuel Austin Kendall (1933), congressman from Pennsylvania, self inflicted gunshot wound in the House Office Building
  • Preston King (1865), Senator from New York, leapt from ferryboat in New York Harbor
  • William Oswald Mills (1973), U.S. congressman from Maryland
  • John Milton (1865), Governor of Florida
  • Sylvia Plath (1963), American poetess, author and essayist
  • George Reeves (1959), American actor, played Superman on television
  • Thomas Caute Reynolds (1887), Governor of Missouri
  • Thomas Reynolds (1844), Governor of Missouri
  • Thomas Jefferson Rusk (1857), senator from Texas
  • Socrates (399 BCE), Greek philosopher
  • Jesse B. Thomas (1853), U.S. Senator from Illinois
  • Hunter S. Thompson (2005), American author, gunshot
  • Alan Turing (1954), British mathematician and computer scientist
  • Vincent van Gogh (1890), Dutch painter, gunshot to chest
  • Sid Vicious (1979), bassist of the Sex Pistols, heroin overdose
  • John Gilbert Winant (1947), Governor of New Hampshire
  • Marion Anthony Zioncheck (1936), congressman from Washington, jumped out of office building
  • George Washington Adams (1829), Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and the son of John Quincy Adams
  • Marilyn Monroe (1962), US Actress, found dead and naked in her bed at her California home from an overdose of sleeping pills
  • Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1893), Russian composer
  • Robert Adams, Jr. (1906), congressman from Pennsylvania
  • Anson Jones (1858), congressman, and the last president of the Republic of Texas
  • Thomas McKee Bayne (1894), U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania
  • John Gilbert Winant (1947), Governor of New Hampshire
  • Robert M. La Follette, Jr. (1953), Senator from Wisconsin
  • James H. Lane (1866), Senator from Kansas, general in Civil War

You can see this list and more at Wikipedia. Also, “A Surprisingly Long List of People Who’ve Attempted Suicide” at Mental Floss.

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October 18th, 2007
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
George
Posted on:
October 19, 2007 at 6:48 am

There are many more who haven’t.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Don
Posted on:
October 19, 2007 at 10:17 am

Freud’s case was apparently a suicide “assisted” by his physician, after many unsuccessful operations and long-term pain from mouth cancer. It seems Freud had asked for death, but it would be hard to say whether the physician intended death or pain relief. It is still an important question just where society should “draw the line” in such cases.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
dave
Posted on:
November 1, 2007 at 7:25 pm

Interesting, but highly disputable. Makes me want to ask you to define “suicide” first before you compile such a list.
I always thought that suicide has something to do with the knowing and wilful decision to die. Overdosing on drugs or asphyxiation on your own vomit after a drinking binge doesn’t really count in my definition. It is an accident.
Or a professional hazard if you are a spaced-out musician with an ongoing drug-problem.
Also, since Camus all these real suicides look so …blimpish and nonprogressive.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Matthew
Posted on:
November 1, 2007 at 10:01 pm

Hey Dave, do you think Camus’ car crash was intentional?

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
dave
Posted on:
November 3, 2007 at 1:40 pm

No, I don’t think his car crash was intentional. He didn’t drive the car himself.
And he condemned suicide as he always condemned nihilism as an answer to the absurdity of life. This is his conclusion in ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’, a book that deals exclusively with suicide.