[Suicidal behavior and transmission of death experiences in the family]

Analytical family therapists have observed in families of suicidal patients massive destructiveness. This was brought into context with early experiences of death in these families. This is statistically evaluated in this study. On 39 patients who attempted suicide and a control group as well as the parents in both groups the early experiences of death were investigated. According to this, there is a very serious predisposition to attempted suicide when the parents as well as the patients have lost close relatives through death in their childhood. Such losses during the childhood of the parents probably increase the suicidal tendencies of the children. But when only the children experienced such losses, the tendency to suicide was less than with others. These results partly explain the contradictions of previous statistics that only investigated losses through death in one generation or the other and not the interactions between both. The new findings are in agreement with psychoanalytical theories. Their significance for the psychodynamics of suicide and particularly for the passing on of traumatic experiences to the next generation is discussed.