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Suicide, Loss, and Mourning
Author(s) -
Dorpat T. L.
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1943-278x.1973.tb00867.x
Subject(s) - grief , subject (documents) , individuation , object (grammar) , psychoanalysis , psychology , pathological , object relations theory , psychotherapist , medicine , psychoanalytic theory , philosophy , linguistics , pathology , library science , computer science
The intensive treatment of six suicidal patients has been used to explore the relationships among object loss, the mourning process, and suicide. These relationships may be condensed in two propositions: (a) suicidal behavior stems from an arrested grief reaction in which the subject is unable to complete the process of mourning for a lost object; and (b) the suicide's pathological loss reaction is brought about by developmental defects, primarily deficiencies in self‐love and individuation. The suicidal subject's mournïng reaction is arrested in one or more of the first three stages of grief: shock, protest, or detachment from the lost object.