Suicide and deviance are related because loss in social interaction is a consequence of deviance and an antecedent to suicide. This study examined the cognitive and affective experiences of suicidal individuals for evidence of neurosis. Sixty young attempted suicides with a history of a serious suicidal attempts attending the suicide prevention clinic at the Government Rajaji Hospital in India and 60 matched normal and neurotic controls were subjects in a study of their neurotic reaction patterns and aspiration levels. The results indicated the attempters shared with their non-suicidal neurotics features like tension, feelings of insecurity, and a high sickness frequency rate, but clearly differed in their conviction that they fail at everything they do and their goals are unattainable. The normals exhibited greater strivings for success and made adequate adjustments both to success and failure, while the neurotics were more rigid and continued to keep the high goal level regardless of success or failure, acting on ego frames of reference. The suicide attempters set out with goals that were unattainable. This led to a series of failures followed by a state of hopelessness with concomitant feelings of futility, impossibility, dejection, despair and a total lack of aspirational meaning in life, a condition which Frankl termed no ogentic neurosis which accounts for 20 percent of the population today. (Author/ABL)