Immobilization Response to Suicidal Behavior

Certain aspects of self-destructive behavior can be understood as an appeal for help in an intolerable situation made to one or more potential rescuers.³Often the response of the person who receives such a communication is crucial for life or death. When the responses are inadequate, what are the reasons? The concept "suicide" comprises such a wide variety of complex social-psychological phenomena that most investigators have limited themselves to special aspects. For example, Stengel emphasized the social effects of suicidal behavior.¹¹Ordinarily suicide threats or attempts have a powerful social effect, tending automatically to induce or "release" rescuing activity from the environment. Indeed much of the rationale of a Suicide Prevention Center⁵is provided by observations which indicate that potentially self-destructive persons are ambivalent about death. They communicate their suicidal preoccupation. Then others can give aid. In a classical