@article{ref1,
title="A strategic theory of suicide",
journal="L'Encephale (1974)",
year="1996",
author="Baechler, J.",
volume="22",
number="Spec 4",
pages="4-9",
abstract="A strategic theory of suicide assures that any suicide or attempted suicide is a solution to a problem affronted by a person. The basic question is: &quot;who seeks what solution to what problem by killing oneself or by attempting to do it?&quot; This position allows to distinguish between a dozen different meanings of suicidal conducts. By an escape, somebody tries to get out of an unbearable position; depending on the circumstances, the situation is more or less realistic, so that it becomes feasible to question the state of the mind of the subject. Instead, in an appeal, a subject tries to ring a bell, expressing a need to be helped to live. Other meanings are grief, revenge, blackmail, sacrifice, ordeal... The question &quot;who?&quot; can be answered depending on the meanings and the circumstances. One can show the impact of the status of the mind, of age, gender, status, of a series of indicators pertaining to suicide and attempted suicide. Some statistical observations can be explained in this way. In a third point, it is argued that this theory is able to explain how some factors have a bearing on suicide, be it war, the economic cycle, or some more profound cultural patterns, such as nervous breakdown as an ethnic illness or the modern process of individualization. In a final section, a point is made about the possibility of deducing from the theory some kinds of therapy, one bearing on the connections linking the family, the other building on sessions of &quot;problems solving&quot;. On the contrary, one has to keep sceptical about preventing suicides.<p /> <p>Language: fr</p>",
language="fr",
issn="0013-7006",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}