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The Influence of Parental Death Anniversaries upon Suicide Dates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

J. Bunch  and
B. Barraclough
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Extract

Psychoanalytic literature has a number of references to suicidal acts taking place on the anniversary of the death of a loved person. Anniversaries of significant bereavements have been seen as likely to reactivate a depressive syndrome and as possible precipitants of suicide. Zilboorg (7) suggested that suicides might take their lives on the anniversary of a parent's death as though to expiate the death which they unconsciously perceived as the result of their own wishes. Others have seen the meaning of the suicide's act as a fantasied rebirth or new beginning with a lost love object, and the supposed occurrence of suicides on the anniversary of a death has again been instanced as support (Jackson (3)).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 118 , Issue 547 , June 1971 , pp. 621 - 626
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971 

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References

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