Compared the efficiency & utility of the 2 analytical approaches for distinguishing groups of Ss. 4 groups of males served as Ss: 143 nonsuicidal neuropsychiatric controls (NPC), 153 threatened suicides (TS), 73 attempted suicides (AS), & 83 Ss who sometimes threatened & sometimes attempted suicide (TS/AS). A discriminant MMPI analysis shows that MMPI items better identified different types of suicidal groups than did MMPI profiles.