Attempted Suicide: the MMPI Differentiation of Suicidal From Non-Suicidal Depression

The authors’ compared the MMPI profiles 40 suicidal & 40 non-suicidal depressed patients, matched for sex & age, to see if any differences existed between the 2 groups. Psychiatric diagnoses were found to be of little value in differentiating the 2 groups. However, MMPI profiles did appear to distinguish suicidal from non-suicidal depression. It was concluded that suicidal behaviour was not related to qualitative aspects of depression but was related to psychosexual identity problems.