--- Title: Mind Expert Calls Suicide Cowardice Description: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tuesday, February 1, 1927. Unsigned report of Adler's lecture before the Philadelphia Forum, Academy of Music, Philadelphia, January 31, 1927 ("What Really Is Psychoanalysis?"), with statements made before the lecture on suicide. Author: Periodista sin firma URL: https://adler.school/archivo/adler/cronicas/original/1927-02-01%20Mind%20Expert%20Calls%20Suicide%20Cowardice --- # MIND EXPERT CALLS SUICIDE COWARDICE ## Nothing Courageous in Taking Self-Life, Says Dr. Alfred Adler ## Problem of Mankind Up to Mothers, Declares Forum Speaker "Be tender. Be kind. Be considerate. We never know whom we may hurt." That admonition expresses little of the method thought to characterize the delvings into the human mind and emotions of so eminent a modern psychologist as Dr. Alfred Adler, of Vienna, associate of Dr. Sigmund Freud, expositor of the psychonanalytic method and ruthless searcher into the innermost and carefully hidden secrets of the soul. Yet tenderness with those sick personalities into whose reluctantly divulged secrets he has probed for more than thirty years of his life is the quality which marks above all others the Viennese doctor who last night addressed members of the Philadelphia Forum in the Academy of Music. Consider the subject of suicide. What is its cause? Why is it that so many promising young college youths have taken their lives recently? ### Solicitude for Others "It is almost too terrible a thing to talk about," said Dr. Adler last night, prior to his address. "It would cause too much excitement. People are so sensitive. We are all sensitive and it is a terrible thing to hurt anyone's feelings, and more so, the feelings of some one we do not know—someone we have never seen. We must be tender in dealing with such subjects." Nevertheless, Dr. Adler declared such excuses for suicidal acts as depression, loss of money, loss of a loved one, ill health, only secondary. "Every suicide is an attack—an act of revenge. Upon whom? Ah, if we only knew. Then we might solve the problem. "But such acts are born of a resentment, a confusion, and a fear—a suicide is, in its essentials, a frustration and an act of cowardice," he declared. "Cowardice is the motivation back of every suicidal act. It is the fear that a person has developed in the face of his problems which he thinks he cannot solve. There is no such thing as a courageous act of suicide." It is not yet recognized, even by physicians, many of whom are pre-eminent in their profession, how great a hold the neurotic illness, known as melancholia, has upon mankind, Dr. Adler thinks. Its symptoms are misinterpreted time and time again wrongly diagnosed. It is for this reason, he believes, that it is so often said of a person who takes his own life "he was apparently in good health and spirits and had no worries known to his friends and family." In other words, the mind and the emotions are all but a closed book to most of us, according to Dr. Adler, even to many of those whose duty, it would seem, is to penetrate these mysteries, and the most dire things may transpire within the human brain while a calm appearance masks them. ### Psycho-analysis Explained One point, however, Dr. Adler declared he wanted to bring out in America was the loose manner in which the term "psycho-analysis" is used. Stemming, he said, from the studies of Freud and his preoccupation with sexual problems the word has lost its meaning. What Freud studies, he asserted, is but a small part of what Europeans know as modern psychology—but a part of the whole. "Take your favorite melody," he said, "take a few notes from it and try to judge it for its beauty. You can't, for the few notes mean nothing unless they are placed back in the context of the song. That is what Freud's psychoanalysis, as it is known in America, is to the vast store of learning on the whole subject of pyschology which Continental savants are heaping up." As an example of methods of the new psychology, Dr. Adler presented his audience with a hypothetical case history of a "spoiled child," naming the many factors involved in its development and suggesting some of the things possible to circumvent such development. The three great questions involved in the relation of mankind to himself and others are the social, the question of occupation, and the love question. It is the sum of these, or the entire social feeling of a human being, which is mankind's most difficult problem, said Dr. Adler, and it starts from the time of birth. "The roots which should feed this social feeling is the function of the mother," he said. "It is the mother who must put the child in his social environment and prepare him to face the problems of life. Two of these necessary adjuncts are to make him realize he is part of the social element and that he must give of himself to others as well as expect things from them. "If we could prevent wrong development of children, we would prevent future criminals, persons who commit suicide, and much of the sum total of the world's unhappiness. But to do so is more than a science; it is also an art." --- *Fuente:* *The Philadelphia Inquirer* (Filadelfia), martes 1 de febrero de 1927, página de noticias locales y del extranjero (número de página no legible); crónica sin firma. Transcripción hecha sobre la imagen de la página (fultonhistory.com, «Philadelphia PA Inquirer 1927 - 0152.pdf»), cotejada con el OCR de la plataforma; el pliegue y el borde de la columna ocultan algunas letras iniciales, que se restituyen sin dudas por el sentido y el OCR. Se respetan las erratas «psychonanalytic» y «pyschology», y la concordancia «The roots ... is». Las comillas de apertura de «Cowardice is the motivation...» quedan ocultas en el borde de la columna y se reponen; el periódico no cierra las comillas de «Every suicide is an attack... problem.» porque sigue la cita en el párrafo siguiente.