Suicide Potential and Time Perspective

Abstract

LATEST statistics regarding the suicide rate in the United States list 24,000 per year, ranking suicide at least tenth as a cause of death. It is not generally recognized that suicide ranks at least fourth in the young, productive ages (18 to 45), this rate having increased considerably in the last ten years.¹Since many suicides are never recorded as such, and still many other accidental deaths are considered equivocal as to cause (such as many of the 53,000 auto fatalities last year), the actual number of suicides has been conservatively estimated by some to be 60,000 or even 80,000 per year.^2,3The number of suicide gestures or attempts has likewise been judged to be at least several times the above cited rate, or over 150,000 per year.^3-4The resultant waste of human resource is immeasurable, as is the trauma experienced by the survivors of the person