|
Abstract
|
In samples of university students from South Korea and the United States, attitudes toward life and death were more strongly associated with suicidal ideation than attitudes toward the body.
Orbach (2006) noted that it is more feasible to ask what makes suicide possible rather than what causes suicide. Orbach's answer to this question was that bodily dissociation (detachment from body sense) was a factor that made suicide possible. Dissociation would raise the threshold for physical sensations, and this would make the pain that might be involved in suicide less intense, therefore facilitating the self-harm. Orbach, Mikulincer, King, Cohen and Stein (1997) confirmed this hypothesis by finding that suicidal individuals had higher pain thresholds and pain tolerance using thermal stimulation.
Feelings about one's body have previously been shown to be associated with suicidality. Pompili, et al. 2007) found that scores on a measure of body uneasiness (weight phobia, body image concerns, avoidance, compulsive self-monitoring and depersonalization) and risk factors for suicide (depression and reasons for living) predicted suicidal ideation in Italian university students.
Pursuing this idea, Orbach and Mikulincer (1998) devised the Body Investment Scale to measure attitudes that people have toward their bodies with four subscales assessing body image, body touch, body care and body protection. In a study of suicidal and nonsuicidal adolescents, the adolescents who had attempted suicide scored lower on three of the subscales - body image, body care and body protection. Brausch and Muehlenkamp (2007) gave this scale to American adolescents and found that the subscale of body image contributed to the predication of suicidal ideation. Lamis, et al. (2010) found that body image, body care and body protection were significantly associated with suicide proneness.
Language: en |