Attitudes Toward the Body in Suicidal, Depressed, and Normal Adolescents

Our purpose was to investigate the hypothesis that suicidal adolescents, compared with depressed nonsuicidal and nonsuicidal normal adolescents, display a more negative attitude toward their bodies. Scales for suicidal tendencies, dissociative tendencies, perception of actual versus ideal body featu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Suicide & life-threatening behavior 1995, Vol.25 (2), p.211-221
Main Authors: Orbach, Israel, Lotem-Peleg, Meirav, Kedem, Peri
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescents
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Age Differences
Behavior Disorders
Biological and medical sciences
Body Image
Depression (Psychology)
Depressive Disorder - psychology
Dissociative Disorders - psychology
Female
Females
Hospitals
Humans
Male
Males
Medical sciences
Mental Disorders
Negative Attitudes
Pain
Patient Admission
Patients
Personality Inventory - statistics & numerical data
Physicians
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychometrics
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Risk Factors
Schizophrenia
Self Concept
Self image
Social research
Suicide
Suicide - prevention & control
Suicide - psychology
Suicide, Attempted - psychology
Suicides & suicide attempts
Teenagers
Young Children
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Summary:Our purpose was to investigate the hypothesis that suicidal adolescents, compared with depressed nonsuicidal and nonsuicidal normal adolescents, display a more negative attitude toward their bodies. Scales for suicidal tendencies, dissociative tendencies, perception of actual versus ideal body features, and feelings toward the body were administered to the subjects. The suicidal subjects showed a larger perceived discrepancy between actual versus ideal body features and a more negative feeling toward the body, and scored higher on some aspects of dissociation than the normal group. The suicidal group also displayed more negative feelings toward the body and scored higher on some aspects of dissociation than the depressed group. A series of correlations showed that the higher the suicidal tendency, the higher the dissociation, the larger the discrepancy, and the stronger the negative feelings toward the body. The findings were explained as reflecting unique characteristics of suicidal individuals that develop from early trauma and sadomasochistic relationships. These characteristics may facilitate suicidal behavior.
ISSN:0363-0234
1943-278X
DOI:10.1111/j.1943-278X.1995.tb00920.x