[The importance of parental loss in childhood in depressed and suicidal patients]

Abstract

A higher incidence of suicide attempts can be proved in 328 patients over the age of 45 years with endogenous or neurotic-reactive depression if they have experienced loss in childhood through death of or separation from one parent. The increased incidence of suicide attempts can largely be attributed to loss of the father. It is not the experience of loss in itself that predisposes to depressive-suicidal syndromes, rather there are various decisive factors that determine processing of loss experiences and influence the child's further development. The frequency of suicide attempts in the case of loss of the father does not allow any conclusions about immediate causal connections. Loss of the father is to be understood as part of an overall process in which important interpersonal relationships are altered and reconstructed.