ABSTRACT
The choice of the theme 'The Suicidal Adolescent' represents a concern that is central to the authors' work at the Brent Adolescent Centre. At the authors' Adolescent Centre, it is not at all uncommon to hear from those who know the adolescent who has tried to kill himself or who is thinking of killing himself that they were taken by surprise, or that, even though there was trouble in the adolescent's life or in the family, nobody, not even the adolescent who had tried to kill himself, believed that this would happen. Some adolescents talked of having felt a longing to achieve a sense of 'peace and nothingness', and this was their way of undoing their state of painful tension. Feelings of ugliness, thoughts of being homosexual, various secret pleasures, anal masturbation, terror of any sexual feelings, may now be experienced by the adolescent as confirmation that he does not have the right to go on living.
