[1985]: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965. 2nd Printing. Octavo in bright orange jacket, black cloth boards with gilt stamping; xii, 485 pages Jacket is fair with has open tear to front andmoderate shelfwear; a good copy otherwise with some mild bumping to corners and a bookshop sticker on front pastedown. Hardcover.
From the preface: "I believe that our best defense against self-destructiveness lies in the courageous appplication of intelligence to human phenomenology. If such is our nature, it were better that we knew it and knew it in all its protean manifestations." In this landmark book, the impulse toward self-destructiveness is examined as a misdirection of the instinct for survival, a turning inward of the aggressive behavior developed for self-preservation. "One of the most absorbing books I have read in recent years" (Joseph Wood Krutch, The Nation). Contents: Destruction. Suicide. Chronic suicide. Focal suicide. Organic suicide. Reconstruction. Notes: Reprint. // psychology, self-destruction, psychopathology, psychoanalysis
