Suicide in adolescence

Abstract

SUMMARY Suicide is a violent action directed at the person's own body. This action is motivated by a fantasy and as such is defined as a break with reality which constitutes a psychotic episode. Adolescence is considered next, and is seen as a period during which radical changes take place in the person's relationship to his or her body. The fact that suicide attempts in young people almost always first occur after puberty has been reached is then used to show the meaning of the suicidal act as a violent attack on the adolescent's new sexual body. Insofar as this holds for every suicide attempt, however minor, the argument is put forward that a suicide attempt is always a sign of serious disruption and deadlock in the adolescent's development to normal adulthood. In order to help the adolescent with the developmental deadlock the need for regular, and in particular long-term, psychoanalytic psychotherapy is stressed as a matter of urgency in order to avoid later pathological development from taking place.