Suicidal Adolescents and Children

Suicidal adolescents and children represent 0.5% to 3% of all suicides. A study of 31 adolescents and children seen at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center or in private psychiatric practice revealed a peculiar type of self-destructive tendency in 15 patients. In these 15, chiefly adolescents, the suicide attempt was the ultimate in a series of various self-destructive acts. Arousing parental concern and thereby reducing anxiety and feelings of helplessness resulted in a paradoxical situation in which a natural biological drive for survival has become perversely involved with a drive toward self-destruction.