Citation

Scherbaum N. Fortschr. Neurol. Psychiatr. 1997; 65(1): 16-22.

Vernacular Title

Adoleszenz und chronische Suizidalitat-die Biographie des italienischen Dichters

Affiliation

Klinik für Allgemeine Psychiatrie der Rheinischen Landes- und Hochschulklinik Essen.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, Georg Thieme Verlag)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9132365

Abstract

Suicide is widely understood as a failed solution of a crisis triggered by actual stress in a psychologically predisposed person. This description of the biography of the Italian author Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), who committed suicide at the peak of his career, emphasizes that chronic suicidal tendencies may be a feature of certain life-styles. A diary published posthumously shows that he had been reflecting on suicide for many years. A psychodynamic interpretation of his chronic suicidal tendencies stresses the importance of developmental goals in adolescence and early adulthood. Pavese did not establish a firm ego-identity. He remained through-out his life in a state of ambivalence between intimacy and autonomy, typical of adolescence. He increasingly experienced his writing as a surrogate for real life. His suicide was the paradoxical attempt to experience himself as a person acting in reality.

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