ABSTRACT
The incidence of suicide in all age-groups throughout the world is on the increase. The incidence of suicide attempts by adolescent girls is most marked. In some schools it seems almost to have become a fashion to play this bizarre form of Russian roulette. A suicide attempt is never just a light-hearted game of chance; it is also always a rejection of life. Occasionally a depression can be the first sign of a severe illness, psychological or physical. Depression in adolescents can show a lot of improbable faces, the most improbable being the artificial gaiety or manic excitement that it the exact opposite of the true underlying feeling. Adults can attune themselves to their own intuitive responses to this behaviour, if it seems false it probably is so; the feeling is as likely as not the adolescent’s incompetent attempt to get away from the sadness of depression.
