You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The paper has the merit of clarity and conciseness. It is easy to follow the authors' thesis. However, one would like to know more about their concepts and their clinical observations before accepting their conclusions. The specificity of the traits and the life situations singled out by the authors has not been convincingly established. The authors' concluding formulation presents an hypothesis which is still in need of validation.
The observation that accident-prone persons are impulsive is not more than a clinical impression which would have to be confirmed by systematic studies. What does “impulsiveness” mean in this context and why does it take that particular form? Impulsive action could take other directions, such as eating, drinking, playing an instrument, taking sexual action, etc. Accident- and suicide-prone persons take aggressive impulsive action. The authors do not refer to aggressive impulses. This seems a deficiency in their theory. It is irrelevant for their thesis whether one adheres to the theory that aggression is due to frustration or whether one assumes a primary aggressive drive.
The authors identify the risk-taking aspect of accident- and suicide-prone behaviour with the daring exploratory activities of the child. Is this justified? The latter is ego-syntonic, i.e., approved by the ego and usually by the superego, i.e., by the parents and society. The accident- and suicide-prone person in endangering himself defies his superego and society. He unconsciously wants to hurt others.
The authors regard assumption of new responsibility leading to identity crises as a specific source of stress. This will be difficult to prove. Nowadays most people, especially the
young and middle-aged, have recently taken on, or are going to take on, or hope to take on new responsibilities.
The factors singled out by the authors may play a part in accident proneness, but only in the context of a multiplicity of factors among which aggressive tendencies and lack of adeq