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64 Boors REVIEWS Lingens. however. comments: “The statement ma! be valid Suicide and Attempted Suicide edited by JAN WALDENSTRBM. to a certain degree for the active participants but hard11 for TACE LARSSON. and NILS LJUNGSTEDT. Skandia Interthe victims of such violent events. The persecution of politenational Symposia VI. Stockholm: AB Nordiska Bokcal adversaries and racial minorities bq the German handeln, 1972, 320 pp. (9 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 11.20). National-Socialist regime \vhich in its dimension might rightly be called revolution against the existing human civiThe 19 papers in this volume on suicide and attempted suilization and war against a people created an extreme situcide were delivered at a conference in Stockholm. and have ation. This showed that the yenrrcll assumption of the debeen published with remarkable speed, and in excellent forcreasing influence on the suicide rate in the countries conmat (but without an index). trolled by the Germans was definitely inaccurate”. Suicide, as May points out in the opening paper of this The volume also contains a long and important chapter Volume, is a world health problem and is an important by Farberow on the cultural history of suicide. illustrated bl cause of death, particularly amongst younger age groups. It a number of colour plates. There are comprehensive papers ranks third, fourth or fifth in a list showing causes of death by Larsson on suicide and insurance: by Soubrier and Verfoi people aged 15-44 in a large number of North Ameridrinne on legal aspects of suicidal behavlour: by Ettlinger can, European and Oceanic countries. Crude death rates and Wistrand on physical and mental illness in suicide from suicide have been remarkably stable during the present attempters: by Otto on suicidal behaviour in adolescents: century, although world rates in recent years have shown a and by Litman on suicide prcvcntion. :\ p;ipc’r hy Stcngcl is slight overall rise. The rate in older people is falling slightly. also included. and consists ofa review of his own and others’ but suicide is definitely increasing in younger age groups. work on the follow-up of attempted suicide. Written in his Attempted suicide (parasuicide), which is most prevalent usual scholarly style. this is probably the last published amongst the young, is also showing a sharp rise in many work of Stengel. whose recent death has robbed the world countries. Kreitman, who reports comprehensive and accuof suicide rcbc;lrch 01’ ,I n~~1or \cholar and ~nsp~r;~t~onal rate data from the Regional Poisoning Treatment Centre in source. Edinburgh, indicates that the rate of parasuicide in the city Manv of the papers report original Scandinavian research has increased by 600 per cent between 1962 and 1969 in on suicidal behaviour. in the methodologically rigorous trayoung men. The Scottish figures show, too. that completed dition of Scandinavian psychiatric studies. Altogether. this suicide is increasing amongst this age group. volume is an important contribution to the literature. Papers by Bolander and Retterstsl give detailed informaalthough sociological aspects of suicide are only considered tion on suicide in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. in one or two papers. A fully comprehensive overview and In these countries methods of ascertaining suicide are very the integration of the literature on social. psychological and uniform. There has, too, been a remarkable stability in suibiological aspects of suicidal behaviour has yet to be cide rates at nil ages in these countries, with the exception attempted. of Sweden where the rate is rising. Bolander indicates that the basic similarities between the CHRISTOPHER BAGLEV University zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLK ofSurrr_v. four countries should make comparative research, into difSurrey, Enyland ferences in the suicide rate, a profitable exercise. Pichot and Menahem present a detailed review of the literature on constitutional factors in suicide, such as body build, brain pathology, and genetic and biochemical factors. Despite a great deal of research in this field, few firm conclusions can be drawn. The only well established facts are that The Retarded Child and the Mother e dite d b y MAUII MANthe risk of suicide is increased in depressive phases of manicNONI.Tavistock Publications, London, 1973. 242 pp. (f4.15). depressive psychosis, and that manic-depression has a genetic association. Obviously, social factors can still account This book was originally written in 1964 and translated this for a large part of the variance in suicide rates. What could year. The title is incomplete because the book touches on happen is that people psychologically at risk (e.g. with many different aspects of psychoanalysis but is the outmanic-depression) are the most vulnerable to social stresses growth of the author’s studies with families who have or conditions which precipitate suicide. brought retarded children to her for analysis. The book is In a remarkable paper, Ella Lingens reports new and complicated, convoluted. and ultimately unrewarding. detailed evidence on suicides in concentration camps. In The author represents a splinter group within French psysuch an extreme situation. the suicide rate was high. Lingens choanalysis though she was originally trained in Belgium. suggests that these suicides were due to “the loss of all interShe begins with a central idea that people wish to treat a est outside one’s own personality. the deep discouragement symptom instead of a child and implies that her view reforand, maybe the most decisive symptom of all. the growth, mulates both the problem of childhood disturbance and inhibition and then inversion of aggression. This seems to retardation and offers a more comprehensive approach. She be the most important difference from the situation of the implies that efforts were made to prevent translation of the participants in a war or revolution, preventing suicide”. book for no apparent reason and then she proceeds to an When, in the Treblinka camp, a key was found to the S.S. abstruse and pretentious discussion of using specialized terarms chamber and a revolt organized. the suicide rate minology derived from Lacan’s formulations of the uncondropped remarkably. scious as a language. Although a glossary of his terminology Retterstijl shows, in another paper. that the rate of suiis appended and much can be blamed on the awkwardness cide in Norway has been stable for nearly 100 yr. except durof translation. the fundamental errors seem to lie with the ing the two major wars, when the rate dropped. In this case. author. She is given to arro_eant. apodictic declarations. war provided zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA a n o utle t fo r a g g re ssio n. whic h is. a ppa re ntly some of which are surprizingly uninformed. She claims this inve rse ly re la te d to suic ide . This confirms the general o b se ris the first psychoanalytIc &Tort with the retarded when va tio ns o f Durkhc im a nd o the rs a b o ut w;Ir ;Ind re vo lutio n.