Srpski arhiv za celokupno lekarstvo 2010 Volume 138, Issue 9-10, Pages: 647-650
https://doi.org/10.2298/SARH1010647M
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Mother’s filicide with suicide attempt
Mišić-Pavkov Gordana
Gajić Zoran
Golubović Boris
Božić Ksenija (Institute of Neurology, Clinical Centre of Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Serbia)
Introduction. Filicide is the killing of a son or daughter by a parent. The
paper examines interaction between stress and maternal psychopathology that
led to the killing. Case Outline. After prolonged conflict with her
ex-husband and father of her only child, the respondent committed filicide.
Two years before committing filicide, after she had divorced the father of
the child, the respondent attempted suicide and had to be hospitalized. On
that occasion, she was diagnosed with depressive disorder, which was not
treated after hospitalization. Having killed her daughter by cutting her
throat, she tried to commit suicide in the same manner, by slitting her
throat. During further observation, the respondent was found to suffer from
acute psychotic disorder, depressive disorder and histrionic personality
disorder. These disorders in interaction with stress do not provide us with
an explanation for an unusual and psychopathological motivation analysis of
killing the child. Conclusion. Filicide is a violent act, most frequently
multifactorial in its nature. Histrionic personality disorder in mother
cannot explain the filicide act. Only interactive and dynamic evaluation of
this psychiatric disorder in its longitudinal, development aspects and its
potentiality to enable the expression of some other psychiatric disorders,
especially dissociative states, as well as the importance of prolonged and
acute stress and its subjective importance for the individual can shed some
more light on the mental state of the mother at the time of filicide.
Keywords: filicide, suicide attempt, psychiatric disorder
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