Les tentatives de suicide par intoxication médicamenteuse volontaire

International audienceSuicide attempts have rarely been included in the analysis of the social uses of drugs. However, they most often result from voluntary intoxication by ingestion of psychotropic drugs. This article seeks to account for life problems that these intoxications reveal among adolescents, one of the populations most affected by this phenomenon. It is based on the observation of consultations for adolescents in two French hospitals and on the study of hospitalization reports of these patients. The analysis of this corpus shows to what extent failure to face the challenges of independence and performance has shaped the suicidal act of these young people. In this respect, the moral demands of these adolescents are no different from those of the best-integrated smart drug users, with the difference that the trajectory of these young people shows more directly the pitfalls of such expectations