"This is not death, it is something safer": a psychodynamic approach to Sylvia Plath

An attempt is made to illustrate the chronic suicidality and the separation-individuation conflict in the life and work of Sylvia Plath. Explanations of female suicidality in prevailing suicidality research are primarily influenced by male fantasms and gender role cliches. Plath's work, however, not only enables insight into her individual fate, but also offers a differentiated perception of suicidality among women. It becomes apparent that the texts in question are centered on specific conflict areas, in the sense of the formation of female identity and subjectivity, which affect current discussion on imagined concepts of femininity, and which are closely interwoven with the problems of female suicidality.