Suicidal Adolescents and Today’s Society, Psychopathological Reflections and Suicidal Prevention

Although considerable progress has been made in the care given to suicidal teenagers, resulting in a significant decrease of the suicide-related mortality, we are currently witnessing an epidemic of suicide attempts among adolescents who seem to not be affected by any psychiatric condition. Based on this observation, the authors analyze teenage suicide in the context of recent familial and societal evolutions, and open the discussion between, on one hand, those who attribute this phenomenon to a reactive behavior following the confrontation of a loss never before experienced, and those, on the other hand, who consider that it is a symptom of current social demands. Finally, the authors present a project of a secondary preventive treatment approach, using new technologies, for teenagers who attempted suicide.