Confusions of the Body, the Self, and Others in Suicidal States (IN: Suicidology: Essays in Honor of Edwin S. Shneidman, edited by A A Leenaars)

The paper explores the idea that when psychological individuation remains incomplete, the self-representation & object-representation of the mother are not fully distinguished, or, if they are, they are prone regressively to re-fuse under stress. The unstabe, fluid, more or less fused self-object-representation that suicide-vulnerable patients carry lies at the heart of their self-destructive behaviours. Also, disturbed self-representation is universal in suicide. (70+ references).