[A strategic theory of suicide]

A strategic theory of suicide assures that any suicide or attempted suicide is a solution to a problem affronted by a person. The basic question is: "who seeks what solution to what problem by killing oneself or by attempting to do it?" This position allows to distinguish between a dozen different meanings of suicidal conducts. By an escape, somebody tries to get out of an unbearable position; depending on the circumstances, the situation is more or less realistic, so that it becomes feasible to question the state of the mind of the subject. Instead, in an appeal, a subject tries to ring a bell, expressing a need to be helped to live. Other meanings are grief, revenge, blackmail, sacrifice, ordeal... The question "who?" can be answered depending on the meanings and the circumstances. One can show the impact of the status of the mind, of age, gender, status, of a series of indicators pertaining to suicide and attempted suicide. Some statistical observations can be explained in this way. In a third point, it is argued that this theory is able to explain how some factors have a bearing on suicide, be it war, the economic cycle, or some more profound cultural patterns, such as nervous breakdown as an ethnic illness or the modern process of individualization. In a final section, a point is made about the possibility of deducing from the theory some kinds of therapy, one bearing on the connections linking the family, the other building on sessions of "problems solving". On the contrary, one has to keep sceptical about preventing suicides.