Suicidal Behaviours at the Dawn of the New Millenium: On Their Nature, Magnitude, and Causality. Professorial Lecture By

an estimate of 835,000 persons died as a consequence of suicide. Therewith, the death toll of suicide equals and in many countries even exceeds that of road traffic accidents. In addition to the number of suicidal deaths, at least ten times as many persons make non-fatal attempts to take their lives or harm themselves, often seriously enough to require medical attention and not infrequently resulting in irreversible disability (2). But suicidal behaviour is not merely an act of violence against the individual self, and the above mentioned figures inadequately describe the magnitude of the human suffering that is caused by such an event. If one considers that for every suicidal death there are at least 5-6 persons on average whose lives are profoundly affected emotionally, socially, economically (and often for many years), then each year millions of survivors-victims are added to the tens of millions already "out there " (3). The amount of violence which is implicit in the above mentioned considerations is enormous. It directly goes back to the propositions of the early psychoanalytical thinkers who regarded suicide as