The final hours: a linguistic analysis of the final words of a suicide.

A journal, two suicide notes, and two tape recordings from a young man who took his own life were analyzed by applying a computer program to analyze texts. The analysis indicates a calming trend from the journal entries to the suicide notes to the tape recordings, with an additional increase in positive emotions expressed from the first recorded message to the second recording made just an hour or two before his death. The usefulness of this approach for understanding the psychodynamics of suicidal behavior is discussed.