Suicide,Loss, and Mourning

ABSTRACT: The intensive treatment of six suicidal patients has been used to explore the relationships among object loss, the mourning process, and suicide. These relationships may be condensed in two propositions: (a) suicidal behavior stems from an arrested grief reaction in which the subject is unable to complete the process of mourning for a lost object; and (b) the suicide's pathological loss reaction is brought about by developmental defects, primarily deficiencies in self-love and individuation. The suicidal subject's mournïng reaction is arrested in one or more of the first three stages of grief: shock, protest, or detachment from the lost object.