SUICIDE:
WHAT SOME OF THE
LITERATURE SAY
BY PREM MISIR, Ph.D.
Adolescent
girl described her suicide attempt
The
global scene
Sociological
explanations
Preventive
intervention
Dear Mommy and Daddy,
I’m sorry to do this to you’all but I can’t
take this life anymore.
I’m taking my boys with me. Please put one on my right
and one
on my left side. I love my boys and hope God forgives me
and let
me be with them. I know in my heart that my boys will be
with God.
God please forgive me for I have sinned.
I love you, Mother and daddy,
Eileen
[P.S.] Please dress the boys in blue. They look good in
it. Please put me between them. I love them and want them
to be in heaven, God’s heaven. Please put with Monty
Jay his night, night blanket, one that Mom made. Please
put with Jeff his little tiger that he got on his first
Christmas on my bed…(Daly and Wilson, 1988).
This was a suicide note left by a troubled
woman. The distraught mother was discovered in a drug-induced
coma, was revived, tried in a court of law, and sentenced
to life imprisonment. Her act was attempted suicide.
Here
is how an adolescent girl described her suicide attempt.:
As a teenager, I basically had no friends, no interests
at all. I stayed home. I felt very insecure around people,
like I wasn’t worthy to be around them. I’d
skip classes; I’d be in the john crying. It finally
got to the point where I begged my parents to let me quit.
My grades were suffering terribly. So my father signed the
papers and after that, it’s all I heard, “You
flukey, jukey bird,” from my father because I quit
school. Well, I loved my father, but he drank and beat my
mother and would bust up the house. She left with us kids
several times. Basically, I stayed in my room and I reached
the point where I didn’t want to be alive. (Stephens,
1987).
Suicide is the ninth-ranking cause of death
in Guyana, and the eighth in the United States. The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. indicated
that suicide is the third leading cause of death among young
people aged 15 through 24. In Guyana, suicide and self-inflicted
injury accounted for 41 certified deaths in 1997, 35 in
1998, and 164 in 1999. More males than females committed
suicide in Guyana – 189 males, and 51 females for
the three years. Guyana also chalked up 160 and 169 suicides
in years 2000 and 2001, respectively.
The
global scene
Globally, the highest rank for male suicides is found in
Lithuania, and China has the highest rank for female suicides,
as reported by the International Academy for Suicide Research
in 1998. The World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that
in 2000, about 1 million people worldwide would have died
from suicide. Since 1954, suicide rates have increased by
60 percent globally, and is the three leading causes of
death among people of both sexes aged 15 through 44, according
to the WHO. In a third of the world, the WHO reported that
suicide rates among young people are so alarmingly high
that today they are classified as the highest risk group.
What makes a person take his/her own life?
Sociological
explanations
Let’s start with a definition of suicide and then
try to explain in this section why it occurs. Suicide is
the intentional destruction of one’s life. Suicide,
therefore, is a deliberate act. Some sociological explanations
follow:
1). Suicide varies inversely
with the extent of social constraint exerted on the individual,
according to Maris (1969). Social constraint refers to rules
and shared ideas by which an individual’s life is
regulated and integrated. That is, the greater the social
constraint on the person, the lower the probability of suicide.
The lower the social constraint, like in cases of social
isolation, the higher the probability of suicide.
2)·Suicide varies inversely with
the degree of status integration in the society (Gibbs &
Martin, 1958, 1964). Suicide acts are higher in situations
of minimum status integration. If the many statuses or positions
a person holds in society are closely linked (high status
integration), then chances are that the probability of suicide
will be low. In effect, a high level of role conflict (low
status integration) with the many positions held could induce
suicide acts.
3). Suicide varies positively with status
frustration (Henry & Short, 1954). A person may become
so frustrated at the loss of status relative to others in
the same system, that he/she feels like killing the self.
So the higher the status frustration, the greater the chance
of a suicide act.
4).Suicide varies positively with migration
rates (Stack, 1980). High migration rates place people in
the host society where it may take some time before they
feel they are part of the new society. Also, in societies
with high migration rates, some people are left behind,
eagerly awaiting immigration papers that will enable them
to travel to the host country. This waiting could now take
years, as in the case of the U.S. In this situation, the
person waiting may not adjust well to an almost permanent
absence of relatives, like siblings, or a mother and/or
a father. In such cases, the person in question could experience
trauma. Therefore, loss of a dear relative is experienced
at both ends of the migration continuum, that is, in both
the donor and host societies. According to Stack, chances
are that societies with high migration rates could have
a high suicide rate.
5). Suicidal behavior can be learned. Akers
(1985) provides two learning paths to committing suicide.
The first is learning to behave suicidally, but not fatally,
and later arriving at a suicidal point. The second path
is learning and build on a readiness of committing suicide
and then actually being successful at the act.
These theories, generally, attempt to explain
suicide as occurring because of a lack of social integration
in people’s social relations, the presence of social
disorganization, and using the socialization perspective.
It was Durkheim’s study of suicide in 1897 that pointed
out the relationship between suicide rate and social integration.
He argued that the suicide rate could not be explained through
the personal characteristics of individuals, but only through
the amount of social cohesion or social integration in the
society. It needs to be said, however, that the majority
of people experiencing a lack of social cohesion in their
relations, do not commit suicide.
Preventive
intervention based on sociological and social psychological
understanding
How do people come to commit suicide? What is their state
of mind when they are on the threshold of committing the
act? People contemplating suicide are not mentally deranged,
or experiencing insanity. Since suicides are intentional,
mental disorders may hinder suicide. Litman (1987) said
: “Mental disorders or developmental deficiencies
that reduce the capacity for planning and deliberation,
and that prevent the psychological organization of sequential
actions, greatly reduce the potential for suicide.”
Suicides, on the whole, therefore, are rationally planned
In the Maris’ study (1981) of suicides
in Chicago from 1966 through 1968, a conclusion deduced
is as follows: there is no question that depression was
important in the research, but hopelessness seemed to have
more significance than depression. Hawton (1986) said the
following about adolescents who attempted suicides: “The
main feelings that appear to precede attempts by adolescents
are anger, feeling lonely or unwanted, and worries about
the future. A sense of hopelessness is a major factor distinguishing
depressed adolescents who make attempts from similar adolescents
who do not.” Which of the two, depression or hopelessness,
has a greater importance in producing suicidal thoughts?
This is important to know in the development of preventive
intervention. A study by Rudd (1990) supports hopelessness
as a major factor. However, lack of social cohesion, social
disorganization, and socialization, generally precede both
depression and hopelessness. So preventive intervention
would need to first address the preceding factors. If this
stage is successful, then there is no need to tackle hopelessness
and depression.
The increased suicide rate in Guyana, with
a few successful attempts already in this new year, points
to the need for effective prevention intervention based
on an application of both sociological and psychological
perspectives. Any half-baked approach will stagnate prevention
intervention.
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