Sigmund Freud’s “Contributions to a Discussion on Suicide” ([20th & 27th April] 1910) was a pivotal Vienna Psychoanalytic Society session addressing rising adolescent suicides. Freud argued schools were not solely responsible, but should support students transitioning away from family. He stated schools must not be “more than a game of life,” acknowledging the need to treat pupils as immature, developing individuals. (From AI, 31st March 2026)

Published

Adler, Alfred; Freud, Sigmund et al. (1910). Über den Selbstmord insbesondere den Schüler-Selbstmord (1. Heft ed.). Wiesbaden: J. F. Bergmann.

In English

***

i) Discussions of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, 1910—On Suicide. With Particular Reference to Suicide Among Young Students: Edited by Paul Friedman, M.D. New York: Translated by James Strachey and Pau Friedman, International Universities Press, Inc., 1967. 141 pp.

Available www.LacanianWorksExchange.net /Freud (20th April 1910)

***

ii) An abstract of Contributions to a Discussion On Suicide1 by Sigmund Freud, Translated by James Strachey, SE XI p231-232, (1910).

Introductory Remarks

Gentlemen,—You have all listened with much satisfaction to the plea put forward by an educationalist who will not allow an unjustified charge to be levelled against the institution that is so dear to him. But I know that in any case you were not inclined to give easy credence to the accusation that schools drive their pupils to suicide. Do not let us be carried too far, however, by our sympathy with the party which has been unjustly treated in this instance. Not all the arguments put forward by the opener of the discussion seem to me to hold water. If it is the case that youthful suicide occurs not only among pupils in secondary schools but also among apprentices and others, this fact does not acquit the secondary schools; it must perhaps be interpreted as meaning that as regards its pupils the secondary school takes the place of the traumas with which other adolescents meet in other walks of life. But a secondary school should achieve more than not driving its pupils to suicide. It should give them a desire to live and should offer them support and backing at a time of life at which the conditions of their development compel them to relax their tics with their parental home and their family. It seems to me …

This page can be read in German in GESAMMELTE WERKE Vol 8, Page 62

1 [‘Zur Selbstmord Diskussion.’ First published in Diskussionen des Wiener psychoanalytischen Vereins, 1 (1910), (‘Über den Selbstmord, insbesondere den Schülerselbstmord [On Suicide, particularly among Schoolchildren]’), 19 and 59. Wiesbaden: Bergmann. Reprinted G.S., 3 (1925), 321; Neurosenlehre und Technik (1931), 309; G.W., 8 (1943), 62. The present translation, probably the first into English, is by James Strachey. The discussion to which these are contributions took place in the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society on April 20 and 27, 1910. The proceedings had been opened with an address by a Latin scholar, a Professor Ernst Oppenheim, who appeared in the published version under the pseudonym of ‘Unus Multorum’. He was in fact at that time a member of the Society and later collaborated with Freud in an unpublished paper on dreams in folklore (Freud, 1957a*). The debate which followed was begun and ended by Freud. The report of only one other such discussion was similarly published—that on masturbation (1912f)**.

* Dreams in Folklore: 1911 [1957a] : Sigmund Freud with Ernst Oppenheim, SE XII, p177

** 1912 Symposium on Masturbation: Freud concluded a 1912 symposium on masturbation for the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society by stating the subject was “inexhaustible” and that the time had come to break off, acknowledging the “solitary pleasures”.

Contributions to a Discussion on Masturbation : 1912 : Sigmund Freud, SE XII p239-254

Notes

***

-Contributions to a Discussion on Suicide (1910g), Wikipedia/On suicide, 31st March 2026

On Suicide: With Particular Reference to Suicide Among Young Students is a 1967 English translation and editing by the psychoanalyst and suicidologist Paul Friedman of the original “Über den Selbstmord insbesondere den Schüler-Selbstmord” by the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. The original piece was published in 1910 in German and includes psychoanalytic discussions from eight members of the society about the causes and explanations for the suicide of students.

The eight members are Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Josef Karl Friedjung, Carl Furtmüller (pseudonym: Karl Monitor), David Ernst Oppenheim, Rudolf Reitler, J. Isidor Sadger and Wilhelm Stekel. The translation by Friedman was a project of the Library Committee of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute to give non-German speakers access to the historical document.

Sigmund Freud

The neurologist does not share Oppenheim’s opinion on the responsibility of schools. He is of the opinion that teachers should be supporting students as surrogates of their families and fail to arouse their interest in life. Freud later ends the discussion by claiming that there is still not enough psychoanalytic understanding about the emotional processes and changes of the libido as causes of suicide.

In the foreword written by Paul Friedman, the author stresses the historical significance of the document as it was one of the last meetings of the society. Giving an illustration of the Zeitgeist of 1910 he describes an “epidemic” of suicides among young students, partly due to the book The Sorrows of Young Werther written by Goethe. Furthermore, the author displays the time before 1900 as a deterministic philosophy where human behaviour was attributed to outer abiding causes and was rationalized.

According to Friedman, in the realm of psychiatry suicide was associated with mental disorders, caused by predisposing factors such as heredity. The etiology of suicide presented by the symposium on suicide is therefore seen as revolutionary in the author’s eyes. Especially, topics such as psychosexual crisis, heterosexual and homosexual conflict, as well as an association between murder and suicide, went against the strong resistance of psychological thinking in the beginning of the 20th century.

The preface was written by Alfred Adler on behalf of the society and gives further information about the members of the circle. He describes that the Vienna psychoanalytic Society met every week for seven years and is composed of physicians and psychologists, all applying the psychoanalytic method first used by Breuer.

***

-Notes from AI, 31st March 2026

Sigmund Freud’s “Contributions to a Discussion on Suicide” ([20th & 27th April] 1910) was a pivotal Vienna Psychoanalytic Society session addressing rising adolescent suicides. Freud argued schools were not solely responsible, but should support students transitioning away from family. He stated schools must not be “more than a game of life,” acknowledging the need to treat pupils as immature, developing individuals.

Key Aspects of the 1910 Discussion:

Context: The meeting addressed “suicide among young students” as a major social issue, featuring insights from Freud, Alfred Adler, and others.

Freud’s Position: He cautioned against blaming schools entirely, suggesting that student suicides reflect broader traumas and the immense pressure placed on adolescents during development.

School Function: Freud argued that schools must acknowledge students’ immaturity and not behave with the same “inexorable character of life”.

Role of Fantasy: The discussion touched on how students may experience profound emotional struggles, including the inability to cope with the demand to detach from parental homes.

This discussion was a rare occasion where psychoanalysts engaged in a concerted effort to understand suicide, later published in full by Paul Friedman in 1967.

***

Citation

***

– Draft G Melancholia : probably 7th January 1895 : Sigmund Freud, see /3 Sigmund Freud (18950107 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts)

Footnote [2] of the German text (Briefe an Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904 Sigmund Freud, Second Edition 1999), translated by Richard Klein, p35 of www.Freud2Lacan.com,

Following older German psychiatry, Freud uses the term “melancholia” in this sketch to describe all depressions and mood swings, even mild ones. The clinical approach, i.e., the attempt to derive “melancholia” from the reaction to sexual excitement, naturally soon appeared unsatisfactory to Freud. … Thus, only what could later be translated into the language of libido theory has survived from the clinical observations, namely the comparison of mourning and melancholia; it is used in the conclusion to the suicide discussion (1910, p. 64)

P141-142 of James Strachey’s [Paul Friedman], Sigmund Freud:

Gentlemen,

-I have an impression that, in spite of all the valuable material that has been brought before us in this discussion, we have not reached a decision on the problem that interests us. We were anxious above all to know how it becomes possible for the extraordinarily powerful life instinct to be overcome: whether this can only come about with the help of a disappointed libido or whether the ego can renounce its self-preservation for its own egoistic motives. It may be that we have failed to answer this psychological question because we have no adequate means of approaching it. We can, I think, only take as our starting-point the condition of melancholia, which is so familiar to us clinically, and a comparison between it and the affect of mourning. The affective processes in melancholia, however, and the vicissitudes undergone by the libido in that condition, are totally unknown to us. Nor have we arrived at a psycho-analytic understanding of the chronic affect of mourning. Let us suspend our judgment till experience has solved this problem.

Related Text

Mourning and Melancholia : 1915 [published 1917e] : Sigmund Freud, SE XIV p238-259, see this site /3 Sigmund Freud (19150101 or Index of Sigmund Freud’s texts)