title: [Adolescence and chronic suicidal tendencies--the biography of the Italian poet Cesare Pavese (1908-1950)].
abstract: Suicide is widely understood as a failed solution of a crisis triggered by actual stress in a psychologically predisposed person. This description of the biography of the Italian author Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), who committed suicide at the peak of his career, emphasizes that chronic suicidal tendencies may be a feature of certain life-styles. A diary published posthumously shows that he had been reflecting on suicide for many years. A psychodynamic interpretation of his chronic suicidal tendencies stresses the importance of developmental goals in adolescence and early adulthood. Pavese did not establish a firm ego-identity. He remained through-out his life in a state of ambivalence between intimacy and autonomy, typical of adolescence. He increasingly experienced his writing as a surrogate for real life. His suicide was the paradoxical attempt to experience himself as a person acting in reality.
authors.affiliation: Klinik für Allgemeine Psychiatrie der Rheinischen Landes- und Hochschulklinik Essen.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Scherbaum
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005197:Famous Persons; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008093:Literature, Modern / Q000266:history*; D008297:Male; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D011037:Poetry as Topic / Q000266:history*; D013405:Suicide / Q000266:history*