make the basketball team. They tend to forget that to the teenager, the experience can be emotionally traumatic. . .(p.32)
In an interview with Ronald Maris (Editor of the research journal Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior), that was presented in U.S. News & World Report (April 2, 1984), Maris cites several additional reasons why teens and young adults commit suicide. These reasons include: (1) competition for jobs and other trappings of success; (2) disappointment over the quality of one's education; (3) dysfunctional family environment; (4) presence of a "role model" such as a relative who committed suicide; (5) enhancement of personal chaos through substance abuse; and (6) a decline of religious values.
While Maris' focus is upon essentially sociological reasons; other authors have a more psychological focus. For example, Knopf (1984) presents a study of 102 adolescents admitted to Bellevue Hospital in New York City for either suicide attempts or threats. The study, Knopf reports, uncovered five psychological categories of reason motivating teen suicide: (1) a cry for help or a distress signal; (2) internalized anger at another; (3) a psychotic reaction to inner disintegration; (4) a manipulative attempt to either get love or punish another; and (5) a desire to join a dead relative.
Assessment in suicide takes two forms: (1) computation of statistics on failed and successful suicides (assessment of prevalence/incidence); and (2) identification of adolescents who are at risk of suicide. While there are several problems association with the collection and analysis of prevalence data, the assessment area of maximal importance is that of identifying teens at risk; this because understanding factors that place adolescents ar risk is a major part of suicide prevention.
Finch and Poznanski (1971) deal with clinical assessment relative to identification of at risk youngsters; in other words, they discuss the need for ser...