Attempted suicide is a non-fatal act of self-damage carried out with the conscious intention of self-destruction. This is the only definition about which clinicians can be expected to agree. Attempted suicide was, until recently, regarded only as an abortive or unsuccessful suicide. Consequently, it was studied purely retrospectively, which is appropriate for events which mark the ultimate end of an individual. Motives, methods, clinical diagnosis, social factors leading to the suicidal attempts were examined and the available figures were interpreted in the same way as the suicide figures. In the published studies, the number of attempted suicides used to be smaller or did not greatly exceed those of suicides occurring in the same population. It is not surprising that nonmedical research workers should have accepted them as reliable approximations to the true incidence of suicidal attempts, but many psychiatrists have done the same, which illustrates the deceptive magic of figures.