ABSTRACT
According to Joseph Sabbatch, adolescents attempting suicide tend to see family conflicts as longstanding and extreme. They describe their homes as filled with frequent quarreling, distress, and emotional disorganization; there is acute resentment of parents and/or stepparents, accompanied by decreasing communication. In the families of suicidal adolescents, there are a number of possible patterns and paradoxical situations that engulf the adolescent. One of the most common is triangulation, in which there are fundamental contradictions in the directives to the child. The physical changes, the emotionality, the strivings for identity, the sensitivity of adolescents to the vagaries of peer emotions—all these heighten the adolescent's vulnerability to triangulation. Generically, all of the family systems of suicidal adolescents could be described as overly rigid. Therapy with families of suicidal adolescents must do more than ameliorate the dysfunctions of the system. The therapist should examine the family context to ascertain whether it is creating so much stress that modulation is virtually impossible.
