The Process and Phases of Arthur Inman's Suicidal Career

Abstract

This study attempted to understand the process of Arthur Crew Inman's suicidal career, and the phases and pathways leading to his eventual suicide. There remains an inadequate understanding of the phases of the suicide process, even though research has produced insight into the possible pathways leading to the suicide act. Using The Inman diary, which documents, amongst other things, the suicidal behaviour of Arthur Inman, grounded theory techniques were implemented in this study in order to understand such a process. These techniques included the constant comparative method, coding as proposed by Strauss's concept indicator model, memoing and integrative diagramming. The results revealed the existence of four phases of the suicide process, subsuming several pathways. Whilst contemporary studies have focused on pathways to the suicide act, mostly comprising relationships between different variables, it is argued that identifying phases of the process may provide a means of structuring such pathways within certain phases. These phases are characterised by specific cognito-emotive and behavioural properties. Validity and reliability issues are also addressed, together with possible methodological limitations.