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How Suicide Is The Leading Cause Of Death Worldwide?

Decent Essays

Lowenberg & Dolgoff (1996) examines a scenario about Kevin Gallagher. He is a sixteen-year-old high school student who suffers from a spinal condition resulting from a sports injury he encountered several years ago. Kevin has had to receive a copious amount of painful treatments since the day he became injured. Recently, Kevin confided in his social worker about his decision to commit suicide. Kevin’s rational for this decision is because his widowed father wants to get remarried, and Kevin feels that he is in the way. Furthermore, his father’s business is struggling which makes it increasingly difficult to pay for Kevin’s expensive treatments. Kevin believes that he will eventually die anyway so he asks, “Why drag it out?” Kevin does not want anyone, not even his father to know about his decision to commit suicide. He asks his social worker to assist him in finding an easy way to end his life. Suicide is the leading causes of death in many Western countries ranking as number 13 among the leading causes of death worldwide (Hardt et al., 2010). Self-harm is common for adolescence because this stage of life involves an evolving period of physical, psychological, and social development often characterized by confusion and frustration about identity. Erik Erikson identifies this life stage as Identity versus Role Confusion. Based on this theory, Kevin’s sense of self seems to be distorted. He has suffered from a sport’s injury that has now cost him to have to receive

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