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The earliest analytical formulations concerning the problem of suicide and the fear of death dealt with the libidinal aspects of these; attention was drawn to the sexual symbolic significance of death and dying, and death was regarded as a punishment for forbidden sexual impulses. Gradually the importance of aggression came to be emphasized more and more (Freud (1), Abraham (2), Glover (3)). As we know, in suicide, aggression had been turned against the self, both self and hated incorporated objects were annihilated, while death was the punishment for the wish to kill.
Suicide is often regarded not so much as punishment but as a means of preventing oneself from committing forbidden acts. In other cases the decision to kill himself enables the individual to commit forbidden acts, for which suicide is an atonement.1 Suicide always aims at hurting directly some loved person. It achieves this by deserting them, by robbing them of their child, husband, etc. (i.e. oneself) unconsciously of a precious part of their body and by trying to lay on them the blame for the suicide, turning them into murderers, hoping that they will suffer from remorse and, if possible, be punished as well.
There is no doubt as to the importance of aggression as a determining