When the study which formed the basis of this monograph was carried out almost 40 years ago, relevant research was still scanty. The authors expressed disappointment that more than a century of research had not had any obvious positive effect on suicide rates. They considered research into suicide at that time to be stagnant, stereotyped, repetitive, and grossly limited by a retrospective approach, and were clearly frustrated by the resistances which hindered any attempt to ‘lift the veil that covers these tragedies'. The use of sophisticated statistics should not, they asserted, be seen as compensating for major unreliability of social, medical and psychological data, and altogether the authors felt that the prospect for progress in research into suicide was gloomy and discouraging. Research into attempted suicides had also, in their view, been blinkered in its approach and they regretted that it had not been recognised as a behaviour pattern in many ways distinct from suicide, its underlying motivation often far more diverse than simply one of self-destruction. The authors set out, therefore, at a time when attempted suicide was still a criminal offence, to look at the relationship between two populations of patients – those presenting with attempted suicide and those who had carried out completed acts of suicide. Their aim was to evaluate the relationship between the two, their relative size, the mental state of individuals who attempted suicide, as well as the role of inner conflict and their relationships with key other persons.