[Suicidal behavior and "individual freedom"]

There are two conceptions of suicides: suicide as completion of a pathological development and suicide as a voluntary, well premeditated rational act. Between these poles we see a spectrum of various modes in the genesis of suicidal acts. In its conceptional framework this spectrum is placed on two different levels which are incommensurable to each other. Suicide as a pathological event and suicide as a free act (voluntary death) are two aspects, related to each other in a relationship of mutual concealment. Against the background of this ambiguity we discuss a discrepancy of two different aspects: The aspect of the suicide-statistics of private life-insurance-companies and the conception of suicide in psychiatry. There is stated a higher suicide-rate among insurants, which we attempt to interpret. Following reasons are to be discussed: 1. different areas of experience; 2. correlations between traits of the personality of insurants and traits of the personality of men or women who later on will commit suicide; 3. a preference of suicides by temptation to commit suicide in order to get money for the surviving family (we leave undecided wether primarily planned or secondarily promoted). There might be a broader interest in the second hypothesis (= people with a "Typus-melancholicus"-personality structure [Tellenbach] seem to become more often depressive than other people). This hypothesis should be examined in further research.