Adolescent Suicide

Every year about 1,000 U.S. young people between the ages of 14 and 21 take their own lives, and thousands more try unsuccessfully. Behavioral scientists have long believed that it is mostly girls who make the unsuccessful attempts. Now a new study of female adolescent suicide based chiefly on 750 case histories confirms that impression. Among those who try to kill themselves and fail, says Boston University Psychologist Pamela Cantor, girls outnumber boys 9 to 1; among those who succeed, boys are in the majority by a 3-to-l ratio.

The boys succeed because they really want to die, says Psychologist Cantor, which explains their choice of such failure-proof methods as hanging and shooting. She notes that society expects more of males than of females, so that boys who doubt their sexual prowess or career prospects may see death as the only way out. By contrast, a suicide try by a young girl may be less an attempt to die than "a cry for help, a reaching out for human contact, love and attention." The method chosen (sleeping pills, for example) often permits rescue.

Psychologist Cantor observes that the married teen-age girl is more apt to commit suicide than the unmarried girl, and the college student than those not in college. Her study suggests that two groups are especially likely to attempt suicide: those whose fathers have been either uncaring or long absent from home, and first-born girls, particularly those with younger brothers.

In both sexes, Cantor advises, there are several warning signals: insomnia, neglect of personal appearance, the giving away of prized possessions, or a long-lasting depression. Nor does the end of a depression mean danger is over. On the contrary, it is just then that a deeply unhappy youngster "is most likely to mobilize his energies and actually commit suicide."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.