Author:
Schechter Mark,Goldblatt Mark J.,Ronningstam Elsa,Herbstman Benjamin
Abstract
Psychodynamic psychotherapy has an important role in suicide prevention. The psychoanalytic study of suicide has taught us a great deal about the human experience and the process of suicidality. There is also much to be learned from other fields of study and from empirical research that can be integrated into psychoanalytic therapies. Central to the psychoanalytic approach to suicide has been understanding the patient’s internal subjective experience of unbearable emotional or psychic pain and the urgent need for relief. Emotional pain can include intense affects such as shame, humiliation, self-hate, and rage. Factors that can increase vulnerability to suicidal states include problems with early attunement, dissociation and deficits in bodily love and protection, conscious and unconscious fantasy, and certain character traits and dynamics. Empirical research has confirmed many basic psychoanalytic concepts about suicide, including escape from unbearable pain as the primary driver of suicidal behavior, the role of dissociation in increasing risk of bodily attack, and the importance of unconscious processes. Further research into implicit processes and their role in the suicidal process holds potential to improve suicide risk assessment and to enhance psychotherapy by bringing otherwise inaccessible material into the treatment.
Subject
Clinical Psychology,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Cited by
13 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献