Eulogy to Terry Maltsberger

This obituary memorializes Terry Maltsberger, founder of the Boston Suicide Study Group. Terry emphasized an approach that prioritized the patient’s internal subjective experience, and suggested that pursuing this understanding validates the patient’s intrapsychic experience, enabling suicidal patients to feel intersubjectively understood, and is suicide preventing. As a mentor and teacher, Terry was able to inspire our group of anxious clinicians and researchers to undertake the treatment of dangerously hopeless patients. He offered perspective, humor, and warmth (sometimes with a helping of gin or scotch) that held us and encouraged us to go further. He was involved with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) since its inception, The American Association for Suicidology (AAS), where he served a term as president, and was an elected member of the International Academy of Suicide Research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)