The significance of Nico Speijer's suicide: how and when should suicide be prevented?

Abstract

On the morning of September 29, 1981, while attending a meeting of the World Health Organization on suicide, held in Athens, I was suddenly called out of the meeting room. The reason was a telephone call from the Ministry of Health in my country, The Netherlands, announcing that my mentor and friend Professor Nico Speijer had died the night before. He and his wife had put an end to their lives. Apart from my personal feelings, Nico Speijer's way of death touched profoundly upon all of us present at the meeting. Speijer was the grand old man of suicidology in the Netherlands, and, more, he was an outstanding member, even an honorary member, of the International Association for Suicide Prevention. From the birth of this organization in 1960 on, he had been an active and colorful participant in practically all of its meetings. As can be expected in the case of a man of Speijer's status and reputation, his suicide evoked reactions nationwide. The leading newspapers and even the national TV networks made extensive mention of it. Though people's comments on the event were quite diverse, the underlying tone was generally one of understanding and sympathy. At the time of his death Speijer had been very ill with intestinal cancer and had been in great pain. His wife, herself disabled, had preferred to die with him rather than to be left behind. When I returned home from Athens, among the waiting mail, there was a letter written to me in the handwriting that had become so familiar over the previous 10 years.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)