Implicated in responsibility for suicide? Coping with grief and co-responsibility by Goethe as the author of ''Sorrows of Werther''

Journal/Book: Psychother Psychosom Med Psyc. 1998; 48: P O Box 30 11 20, D-70451 Stuttgart, Germany. Georg Thieme Verlag. 139-141.

Abstract: Under the presumption of having promoted some young people's suicides by publishing his novel ''Werther'', Goethe was deeply affected by the suicide of Christiane von Lassberg, the 28-year old daughter of a Weimarian officer. The subject of this essay is to investigate how Goethe worked on the mental conflict of guilt and grief and how he counteracted the danger of paralysing depressions by active intervention and which form of literary expressions he chose.

Note: Article Wilkes J, Univ Erlangen Nurnberg, ABT Kinder & Jugendpsychiat, Psychiat Klin, Schwabachanlage 10, D-91054 Erlangen, GERMANY

Keyword(s): Goethe; ''Sorrows of Werther''; suicide; coping with grief and co-responsibility

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