Weak Victims Fear to Face Future, Viennese Psychiatrist Asserts
Parents Told to Watch for Signs of Depression in Their Children
Suicide among high school and college students can be prevented if parents will familiarize themselves with a few definite signs which usually precede the act of suicide among young persons, according to a message sent by Dr. Alfred Adler, Viennese psychiatrist, yesterday to Ralph P. Bridgman, Director of the Parents' Council of Philadelphia.
Sleeplessness, loss of interest and periods of depression after rising in the morning are the danger signals that should be watched carefully and their causes removed by parents, according to the message of Dr. Adler.
"Naturally parents everywhere are concerned deeply over the near epidemic of suicides among young men and women," Mr. Bridgman said yesterday, "and since Dr. Adler has made a special study of such manifestations, the Parents' Council sought from him in California, where he is now lecturing, a statement on the subject. In his answer he said:
"'Suicide is always an escape. It is always an answer to a present problem. It is also, a weakness—a lack of courage, of self-confidence, or social feeling. A problem always is characterized by tension and there are many tensions from which man may fly in weakness—hurts to the ego in school years, in the quest of love, hurts growing out of the difficulties of adjustment in marital relations, out of fear of poverty and property losses, fear of old age and the physical tensions of illness and melancholia.
"'Victims of melancholia often will refuse to recognize the blight which has grown upon them. Often it is found in children of a highly sensitive nervous type, who are, for one reason or another, in revolt against their environments. But melancholia has definite physical manifestations, such as sleeplessness, loss of interest and periods of depressions after rising in the morning—and these danger signals should be watched carefully and their causes guarded against.
Dr. Adler, a former associate of Dr. Sigmund Freud, will deliver two lectures in Philadelphia April 6, under the auspices of the Parents' Council. In the afternoon, he will speak in Roberts' Hall at Haverford College and in the evening he will talk on "How to Deal with Inferiority Feelings in Children," in the auditorium of the Social Service Building, 311 South Juniper street.
Fuente: The Philadelphia Inquirer (Filadelfia), domingo 27 de marzo de 1927, página sin número legible; noticia sin firma. Transcripción hecha sobre la imagen de la página (fultonhistory.com, «Philadelphia PA Inquirer 1927 - 2658.pdf»), con ayuda del OCR de la plataforma, que corta el titular y el comienzo de muchas líneas. La cabecera de la página dice claramente «Sunday Morning, March 27, 1927»; el inventario databa la pieza el 17 de marzo. El periódico no cierra las comillas al final de la cita de Adler; se respeta.