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On the Predictability of Suicide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

F. Reitman
F. Reitman*
Affiliation:
The Lady Chichester Hospital, Hove
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Extract

The evaluation of suicide varies with the number of specified aspects employed. Yet none of them is able to offer a predictability of the suicide. Psychiatry acknowledges the fact that suicide is a non-specific symptom, accompanying certain mental disorders, and consequently uses precaution without selective prediction. Psychopathology looks upon the suicidal individual as one who identifies himself with his love object and directs reproaches and aggression against the introjected love object; in the suicidal act he kills the introjected person (Schilder). This only gives the structure analysis of the individual case, and the prediction “the greater the aggression the greater the danger of suicide” does not enable a generalized predictability. Sociological studies offered explanation for statistical coincidences (Durkheim) but failed in construction of a prediction.

Type
Part II.—Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 88 , Issue 373 , October 1942 , pp. 580 - 582
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1942 

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References

Durkheim, E. (1897), Le Suicide, Paris.Google Scholar
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Reed, C. S. (1936), Brit. Med. Journ., 3926, 631–5.Google Scholar
Schilder, P. (1938), Psychotherapy, Kegan, London.Google Scholar
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