Perceptions of Life and Death among Suicidal Gay Adolescents

Abstract

Suicide rates among homosexuals are higher than those among hetero-sexuals. This article suggests that gay youth who attempt suicide represent a special case in which the meanings associated with life and death are worth exploration. In light of the phenomenological paradigm, we are interested in how sixteen gay men who attempted suicide perceived life and death before the actual suicide attempt and how these perceptions are linked to the attempt. Orbach's model specifies four categories of attitudes toward life and death: attraction and aversion to life and attraction and aversion to death. Only three categories of Orbach's model emerged from the interview data. “Attraction to life” was missing and the analysis attempts to account for this gap. Life and death are interdependent; they exist simultaneously, not consecutively; death whirs continuously beneath the membrane of life and exerts a vast influence upon experience and conduct (Yalom, 1980, p. 29).