Unlock the complexities of adolescent suicide attempts through the lens of melancholic identification. Discover how the loss of a mother to suicide during childhood can trigger a traumatic chain reaction, influencing young girls' mental health and increasing their vulnerability to suicidal behaviors. This critical analysis draws on Freudian theory and epidemiological data to explore the intricate relationships between grief, identification, and the passage to suicidal acts. By understanding the role of melancholic identification in the psychic processes of adolescent girls, we can better address the rising tide of suicide attempts among young females in France, where statistics show a significant increase in 2022. Dive into the psychological dynamics at play and uncover the underlying mechanisms that contribute to this pressing public health concern.
Extract
[...] What is the function of melancholic identification in suicide attempts by adolescent girls who lost their mother to suicide during childhood? - Discussion Discussion The place of melancholic identification in the transition to action of adolescent girls who lost their mother Introduction The place of melancholic identification in the transition to action is important since it seems to reveal the underlying mechanisms for the implementation of suicidal transition in the case of a mother who died by suicide. According to Freudian theory, the melancholic process has three stages, when the subject develops a libidinal link to the other, in this case the mother, then the relationship is interrupted, here due to suicide, and finally when libido renounces the object and withdraws onto the ego. [...]
[...] It is possible to interpret that in death, the adolescent seeks to regain a form of omnipotence, or their original narcissism." Epidemiological point and statistical data in France concerning suicide in general and adolescent suicide According to the National Observatory of Suicide the French suicide death rate is 13.07 per 100,000 individuals in 2019. On average 25 deaths per day in France are recorded, and approximately 200,000 suicide attempts and 90,000 hospitalizations for suicide attempts per year.8 In terms of suicide attempts, increases are observed in 2022 among girls and young women between the average number of patients in the periods 2015-2019 and 2021-2022, in fact more girls aged 10-14 are affected between 2021 and 2022 and the five years before the crisis more adolescents aged 15-19, and 32% more young women aged 20-24.9 In deaths by suicide were recorded in France as a whole, and regardless of age ranges, men are still more numerous to commit suicide. [...]
[...] Thus, a problem at the level of primary narcissism was it aggravated by the loss of the mother? Since the problem would be to make oneself valued as an object, does the narcissistic investment of the body allow or not the passage from primary narcissism to secondary narcissism, in contrast to the melancholic tendency? The paradoxes of suicide are numerous. The subject loves his object, here the mother, in a narcissistic way, that is to say that he projects onto her his narcissistic investment. [...]
[...] The hypothesis that the death of the maternal figure by suicide during childhood is a traumatic event that weakens the narcissistic and identity foundations of the girl as well as her relationship with femininity is confirmed since the traumatic event engages the young girl in a struggle against the idea of growing up and the advent of the genital. This struggle and fragility seem to be able to be interpreted through the Rorschach test. On the other hand, the repercussions of the mother's death by suicide during childhood on the adolescent's psychic process can also be studied from the angle of narcissism in the psychic functioning. [...]
[...] The being replaces the having, that is, the identification replaces the object investment, and in the case of a situation where a young woman is mourning the death by suicide of her mother, the attempt at suicide by the latter is the result of an object disinvestment by an identification with the mother, but also by the act of passing. Link with moral masochism The notion of guilt maintains a close link with Freud's concept of moral masochism in the "economic problem of masochism"."5 Indeed, the need to be ill is based on guilt since, according to Freud: "one notes in particular that it is a factor of almost 'moral' kind, a sense of guilt that finds satisfaction in illness and does not want to give up the punishment represented by suffering [ . [...]
