A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Suicide

As we look about us, we are struck by the tremendous tenactiy with which all living things hold to life, and the tremendous intensity with which they struggle toward creative growth. Yet, in spite of this life force, some human beings destroy themselves.

The suicidal act is one outcome of the decisions: “I will no longer put up with myself as I am,” and “I will no longer tolerate this world as it is.”

These decisions occur to many human beings at one time or another. The healthy person utilizes them as an incentive for making constructive changes in himself and in his environment. Others, coming to similar decisions, destructively shape the environment by creating an imaginary world into which they retreat. Others destroy fellow human beings whom they believe make life impossible for them. Only a few destroy themselves.

My purpose in this paper is to bring briefly to your attention some of the information already available on the problem of suicide; to present clinical material and conclusions drawn from my psychiatric experience; and to make applications of Horney's theory of neurosis to this problem.

We are impressed by the widely varying attitudes which have existed, and still exist, toward suicide. These are determined by group patterns, standards of life, and conceptions about death.

Even among primitive people there is no uniformity. In some tribes suicide is unknown, in others it is common. Some tribes regard it as despicable, and others as the only fitting answer to a trifling insult.

Among civilized people at one time or place, suicide has been regarded as contemptible. In England, for example, it was regarded as a crime; and the body of the victim was submitted to all sorts of indignities, while his property was confiscated by the state. In India the practice of suttee, in which the widow burned herself on her husband's funeral pyre, became a praiseworthy sacrifice approved by the state. In Japan, persons were encouraged by the state to