Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T13:02:47.067Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Personality and the Nature of Suicidal Attempts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Vinoda Narayana Murthy
Vinoda Narayana Murthy*
Affiliation:
All India Institute of Mental Health, Bangalore 27, India
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In a comparative study (Vinoda, 1966) of personality characteristics of 50 female attempted suicides and an individually matched group of 50 psychiatric controls and 50 normals, it was observed that the attempted suicides differed from the psychiatric and normal controls on measures of hostility, guilt, rigidity and neuroticism. Attempted suicides (AS) were significantly more hostile and rigid than both psychiatric controls (PC) and normal controls (NC), and they were significantly more personally ill (neurotic) than normal controls but not more than psychiatric controls. On the basis of previous researches it was hypothesized that the group of attempted suicides would be more hysteroid in their personality and intropunitive in the direction of their punitiveness than the control groups. The first study (Vinoda, 1966) did not reveal such differences. The scrutiny of results showed that there were more or less equal numbers of hysteroid and obsessoid personalities among attempted suicides and similarly a more or less equal number of persons who were intropunitive or extrapunitive in the direction of their aggression. This led the author to hypothesize that these variables might be more related to the nature of suicidal attempts in terms of seriousness of the attempts made.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 115 , Issue 524 , July 1969 , pp. 791 - 795
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1969 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beck, S. J. (1945). Rorschach Test . Vol. II, A Variety of Personality Pictures. New York: Grune and Stratton.Google Scholar
Caine, T. M., Foulds, G. A., and Hope, K. (1967).Google Scholar
Manual of the Hostility-Direction of Hostility Questionnaire. London: University of London Press.Google Scholar
Caine, T. M., and Hope, K. (1967). Manual of the Hysteroid–Obsessoid Questionnaire. London: University of London Press.Google Scholar
Crasilneck, H. B. (1954). “An analysis of differences between suicidal and pseudosuicidal patients through the use of protective techniques.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Houston.Google Scholar
Foulds, G. A., and Hope, K. (1968). Manual of the Symptom-Sign Inventory. London: University of London Press.Google Scholar
Himmelweit, H. T. (1945). “A study of temperament of neurotic persons by means of level of aspiration tests.” Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London.Google Scholar
Pratt, C. (1951). “A validation study of intropunitive and extrapunitive signs on the Rorschach test, based on records given by suicidal and homicidal subjects.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Purdue University.Google Scholar
Raven, J. C. (1954). Guide to using the Mill Hill Vocabulary Scale, with Progressive Matrices, 1938. London: H. K. Lewis. Stengel, E., and Cook, N. G. (1958). Attempted Suicide: Its Social Significance and Effects. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tuckman, J., and Youngman, W. F. (1963). “Identifying suicide risk groups among attempted suicides.” Publ. Hlth. Rep., 78, 763–766.Google Scholar
Tuckman, J., and Youngman, W. F. (1968). “A scale for assessing suicide risk of attempted suicides.” J. clin. Psychol., 24, 17–19.Google Scholar
Vinoda, K. S. (1966). “Personality characteristics of atempted suicides.” Brit. J. Psychiat., 112, 1143–1150.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.