A case of trauma and attempted suicide in an adolescent patient

Abstract

This paper approaches the existing relationship between trauma, psychic pain and attempted suicide. The contributions of authors in psychoanalysis – regarding the psychic functioning in the face of the domain of the unrepresentable – allow for producing a psychoanalytical understanding of attempted suicide. By means of a clinical illustration, the interrelation existing between trauma, the predominance of the unrepresentable and the psychic dynamics taking part in the dramaticity of a suicide attempt is sought and explored. Hence, such analysis of how one may think regarding attempted suicide, in the way it is named in this paper, as a pain-act, which denounces as it discharges, is the despaired attempt made by the subject in order to get rid of the psychic pain.

Keywords:

• trauma
• psychic pain
• unrepresentable
• suicide attempt
• pain-act
• psychoanalysis

Notes

¹Quotes have been translated from their sources by the authors of this paper.