Observations of Ego Functioning of Suicidal Latency-Age Children (IN: Youth Suicide, ed. by M L Peck, N L Farberow, & R E Litman)

Pfeffer proposes that suicidal behavior is a prototype of acting-out behavior & that some aspects of ego functioning are important to the evolution of this form of acting out(p.39). The findings of research studies involving latency-aged children, comparing those who threatened to commit suicide & those who attempted suicide, have led the author to conclude that suicidal behavior is but one of many forms of acting-out behaviors exhibited by disturbed children. 11 ref. (NBB)