The role of the oedipal fantasy in masturbatory and suicidal phenomena.

The multifaceted syndrome of suicide is viewed as a symptom with a manifest and a latent content. An attempt is made to demonstrate a dynamic reciprocal relationship, in a continuum, among fantasy, masturbation, and suicide. Sadomasochistic phenomena, beating fantasies, and suicidal thoughts and acts are viewed as translations of underlying positive and negative oedipal fantasies. Attention is also paid to how suicidal phenomena are facilitated by immature concepts of death, that is, its perception as a transient and reversible phenomenon, as well as its erotization. Four cases highlighting aspects of these themes are presented and then discussed in terms of how they illustrate the varying vicissitudes and elaborations of the masturbatory and/or oedipal fantasy and act, along separate or simultaneous pathways. In conclusion, there is an exploration of interpretive differences, with special reference to an object relations approach to phenomena, with its emphasis on preoedipal determinants and its attempts to accommodate both the drive/structure and object-relational/structure theoretical orientations.