The Fusion of Pressing Situation and Releasing Writing: On Adolescent Suicide Poetry

The words used in the poetry of 2 adolescents who committed suicide & the poetry of 2 nonsuicidal adolescents were analyzed & classified into semantic fields. Significant differences were found between the suicide & the control groups. These differences showed themselves in the vigour & intensity of the loaded words in the suicide group, as well as in the more extreme occurrence of 2 major foci, “death” & “bad situation”. These foci are demonstrated in a constructed model. (30 refs.)