Evening star., 1933-05-12
SUICIDE IMPULSES
GIVEN WIDE STUDY
AT ST. EL|zABETH'S
Self Destruction Becoming
Major Cause Of Death,
DR.. Lewis Says.
.BLAMES PECULIAR SORT
OF DERANGED MECHANISM
Thinking Is Function of Muscles
as Well as Brain, Psychiatrists
Informed at Session.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,

beth's Hospital.
DR.. Nolan D. c. Lewis of the hospital
staff described the progress already
made in this investigation before the
American Psychopathological Associa-
| tion meeting here yesterday.
| The suicide rate is going up in the
| United States, DR.. Lewis said, to the
point where self-destruction is becom-
| ing a major cause of death The Gov
ernment hospital gets a good deal of
material in the form of men and women
who have tried to kill themselves or
| who have to be restrained from doing
so. There is increasing evidence, DR..
Lewis said. that suicide impulses are
nearly always the result of peculiar
sort of deranged mental mechanism,
| probably peculiar to civilization since 1t
| is seldom encountered among primitive
peoples 1t also has some of the as
poets of a contagious disease. There
/ are epidemics of suicide just as there
are epidemics Of measles.
Deliberate Plans Rare.
DR. Lewis told the psychiatrists that
| instances in which a person acts in a
coldly rational way-deIberately choos-
| ing death as the way Of escape from
| trouble-are at the best very rare.
There are unconscious motives wnlch
the psychiatrists are trying to Isolate.
A very important factor. he said, Is
an unconscious will to die" which is
probably present in every one as coun-
| terpart~ to the more obvious will to
| live" 1t generally appears In actual
behavior in a disguised form of destruc-
tive tendencies, delight in cruelty, etc.
BY this means it is subjugated to the
will to live"
Such symptoms as loss Of appetite
| without any clear organic cause, per.
sistent sleeplessness. drug addiction and
passionate gambling may also be evi-
| dences of the death wish. The man
who kills himself after losing every
| thing in gambling house. DR.. Lewis
said, probably doesn't destroy himself
| because he has failed to win, but be-
cause suicide and gambling are parts
of the same general mental complex.
Restrained by Conventions.
One way the death wish shows itself,
DR. Lewis said, is in the desire for the
death of somebody else or the impulse
ito kill somebody A savage would SIM
ply kill the other person and let 1t go
at that. In civilization man is re-
strained by the laws and conventions
of society. He is also restrained by
the fact that he often also loves the
object he hates. Such Is the case
with death wishes against members OF
ones immediate family.
But the destructive force must be
satisfied. One brings about this salts
| faction by identifying the self with the
hated object and destroying the sell
A man kills himself because he hates
himself, because-in turn-by COM
plex mental mechanism he has made
himself" identical with some person
or object he hates so violently that he
must destroy, yet which he cannot de-
stroy because he also loves it, or be-
cause he is restrained by conventions
of society so strong they cannot be
broken.
| In line with this explanation. DR.
Lewis said, there is apt to be tendency
to suicide among perscnS CT an ldeailS-
tic, day-dreaming temperament. They
have developed more strongly the
mechanism for such transfers and
identifications.
Present in All Persons.
Another important factor DR.. Lewis
study shows, is the emotional self
identification Of members of family
with each other, which explains why
suicides tend to run in families. Queer
cases are found where a son will com
NIT suicide at the same age as when
the father killed himself, and the
grandson may do the same. In such
cases, DR.. Lewis said, the son has un-
consciously SO strongly identified him.
self with the father that he must
repeat, step by step. the various stages
in the fathers life. even to that OF
| self-destruction.
Although suicidal tendencies are pres
ent in all persons, DR.. Lewis said, they
persons with a peculiar sort OF neuro-
| dynamic makeup. 1t is the desire o1
the st. Elizabeth's doctors to find out
exactly what this pattern is. There are
he said some unknown fundamental
elements.
Thinking is not alone function OF
the brain but of the muscles, DIR. Ed
ward ]. Kempf, president OF the society
and DR.. Edmund Jacobson of the Uni
cersity of Chicago told the psychiatrists
DR.. jacobson presented the results OF
long series of experiments demonstrat-
ing, by delicate electrical measurements.
the presence of muscle tensions In all
sorts of mental activities. Without the
muscles, he demonstrated, person
cannot think.
Tension Causes Current.
| A muscle tension causes minute
electric current which can be measured
with suitable apparatus. DR.. jacobson
spent months training individuals tc
relax their muscles completely, one sci
after another, until they reached the
stage where no current was registered
Then such relaxed person was asked
to perform some simple mental activity
such as imagining that he was lifting
1O-pound weight with the right hand
| There was no actual movement, but a
current was Immediately registered
| from the electrodes placed on certain
muscles of the arm. Then he would
| of some high object, such as the Eiffel
, tower. The eye muscles would i'm
mediately register, in the same way
| as when the person looked up. With
complete muscle relaxation, DR.. Jacob
son said, the mind Is blank and a
person falls asleep almost Immediately
Hundreds of different mental operations
registered muscle tensions on the gal
| vanometer
The relaxation method, DR.. Jacob
| son said, has considerable value In
| treating mental cases. He cited the
| instance of a man with growing
impulse to throw himself from a high
building which was so strong that the
victim feared to leave his home. In
vestigation showed such impulses were
accompanied by certain definite ten
sions in the leg and eye muscles. The
treatment was simply training in re-
laxing those muscle systems and keep
ing them relaxed until that particular
BRAIN muscle complex was broken up
The man was completely cured,
There Is q father and q mother con-
science or super conscious strata Of the
=