Suicide as escape from psychotic panic.
Suicides of patients in states of acute persecutory panic may be provoked by a subjective experience of helpless terror threatening imminent annihilation or dismemberment. These patients are literally scared to death and try to run away. They imagine suicide is survivable and desperately attempt to escape from imaginary enemies. These states of terror occur in a wide range of psychotic illnesses and are often associated with command hallucinations and delusions. In this article, the authors consider the subjective experience of persecutory panic and the suicide response as an attempt to flee from danger.
Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Boston Suicide Study Group, Boston, Massachusetts.|McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts.
Mark J
MJ
Goldblatt
Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Boston Suicide Study Group, Boston, Massachusetts.|McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts.
Elsa
E
Ronningstam
Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Boston Suicide Study Group, Boston, Massachusetts.|North Shore Medical Center, Salem, Massachusetts.
Mark
M
Schechter
Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Boston Suicide Study Group, Boston, Massachusetts.|McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts.
Benjamin
B
Herbstman
Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Boston Suicide Study Group, Boston, Massachusetts.|McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts.
John T
JT
Maltsberger
D000328:Adult; D003702:Delusions / Q000523:psychology*; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010200:Panic; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult