Individualism And Suicide

Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist in the late 1800s and early 1900s who came up with the concepts of social regulation and integration. These concepts have to do with the state of societies and how they work. More specifically, social regulation is the norms created by either formal laws or social pressure. The way people are expected to live and perform their daily tasks or jobs are somewhat decided by social regulation. In its most basic form, it’s what is and isn’t deemed acceptable by societies standards. Social integration on the other hand is the extent to which the group or society matters. This brings up the importance of the individual as opposed to the importance of the society. Strength of social ties within the community are big influences on how socially integrated a society is. These two concepts helped Durkheim better form an understanding for things such as suicide rates.

People have been committing suicide since the beginning of time. Suicide is defined as the death of a person, caused by self-directed injurious behavior, with any intent to die as a result of that behavior. A suicide attempt, is a non-fatal, self directed, potentially harmful behavior, with any intent to die as a result.. A suicide attempt may or may not result in personal or physical harm. Suicidal ideation is an individual having ideas and considering or planning to end his or her life. Suicide is usually carried out as a result of ultimate despair due to certain mental disorders such as severe depression, schizophrenia, borderline and bipolar personality disorders, alcoholism and or drug abuse. High stress levels and anxiety due to financial difficulties and personal relationships can also be contributing factors of suicide. According to The National Institute of Mental Health, research has shown that the majority of victims of deaths by suicide had been diagnosed with some type of depressive mental illness. Suicide and suicide attempts have a dramatic impact and take an enormous toll on society. According to recent studies by the CDC, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death among Americans. CDC reports state that last year alone, there are more than 38,000 people who have committed suicide, over one million people have been reported of making a suicide attempts, and two million people have been reported of thinking

The more a question is argued the better that question becomes it is often said. That question begins to grow and the side effect of this is the more people it reaches. Whether that question can be put into a category of right or wrong it begs to be answered. Knowledge is something that people instinctively need to function when faced with a problem, an answer must be found or it begins to form eminent possibility in any direction. The problem is a question that no one can truly answer for anyone other than the person faced with it, which is one's own self. The arguments from either side of this philosophical problem must not be centered around one's own belief but all that share the dilemma, which is in fact every human being.

Durkheim’s theory consisted of finding a problem which was suicide. He then came up with a dependent variable which was the suicide rate. The social forces became the independent variable. The hypothesis would be what the suicide rate would vary with. When he collected his date Durkheim would go into detail about each individuals life and any uprising problems that he could find. He would then analyze the data into four categories which are the three most common types of suicide (egoistic suicide, altruistic suicide and anomic suicide). After looking at the date and matching it up with the proper suicide type Durkheim would then draw conclusions or form a theory.

The bottom was characterize as a large black neighborhood in Ohio, that stood above the hill of Medallion was a predominately white wealthy community. Before it was call the Bottom, now they call it the suburbs. Consequently, a good slave master promised freedom and piece of land if the slave perform difficult chores, when they finish the work he was hastens about giving away valley land he hope to give away piece of the bottom. However, the slave thought the valley land was the bottom, the master told them when God look down, it's the bottom, it the bottom of heaven best land there is. And they agree to it, And it was done. Shadrack was a citizen of the bottom, he fought in WWI, return back as a damaged man that couldn't cope with reality of what was happening in the world, his mental state of mind was unstable he live around the border of the town to find harmony in his life.

The topic of suicide can easily become uncomfortable when discussing. Thoughts of family or friends using a permanent solution to a temporary problem is hard to grasp. Why would an individual choose to do this? Did it stem from personal reasons or was it fueled by a number of out-siding factors. Using Sociology we can decipher human behavior and gain an insight into a global issue .

Durkheim focuses on the stability of society, and discusses the social causes of suicide. His work shows how ideology contributes to stability, and he describes abnormal conditions as anomie. Durkheim states, "in normal conditions the collective order is regarded as just by the great majority of persons …[b]ut when society is disturbed by some painful crisis or by beneficent but abrupt transitions, it is momentarily incapable of exercising this influence [of limiting desires]"

Mikva and Rosenthal. “Guns and the Rising Rate of Suicide.” New York Times. 14 Dec. 2015:

There is never a reason that one should commit suicide, but different cultures have varying views on the act. In Japan there is a type of suicide that is referred to as an honorable suicide. This act is committed by the individual, usually a samurai, were the sword is inserted in the stomach to induce the individuals death. The individual does this to prevent dishonor upon his family through loss of the fight or any great despair (Chambers, 2010). In other societies such as the American Indians they believe that suicide should not even be spoke about due to the fact it will increase the rate of suicide around them. When a suicide occur within the American Indians society they minimize the events associated with the death, and attempt to

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. (2016). A model school policy on suicide prevention: Model language, commentary, and resources. Retrieved from:

Durkheim argues that the suicide rate is a social factor that can be interpreted as an indicator for social solidarity within a society (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01114474).

The article that I chose for my review is Does Deinstitutionalization Increase Suicide? written by Jangho Yoon and Tim A. Bruckner. The reason I chose this article is because I am very interested in mental health and treatment of mental illness. The article focuses on public psychiatric hospitals deinstitutionalizing mental health patients into the community for public mental health care. A reason for deinstitutionalizing patients can be because of the amount of money that the facility could lose. In my opinion, mental health facilities prefer to admit patients with insurance or who are private pay compared to the uninsured or those with low economic status because of the chances of losing the money for services provided. Those who are deinstitutionalized from a mental health facility find themselves going to public community mental health facilities. Although public facilities have resources to help patients, there are some diagnosis that these facilities are unable to treat, in this case the patient needs to be in a more advanced institutional facility. Another thing that the article talks about is the relationship between deinstitutionalization and the rate of suicide.

This report investigates the autonomy and independence that the United States of America’s nation has been established upon, involving the capability of patients making their own decisions. The ethical issue that will be largely discussed is physician-assisted suicide. Do you think it should it be legal in all 50 states or should it be ethically unheard of and illegal throughout the nation? There will be discussions of a specific case involving this issue, where the debate originated, and an analysis of ideological standpoints for both those who are for physician-assisted suicide becoming legal and others who are against the concept. Also, there will be a proposal with an alternative of how to create a more appealing option for these patients

The experiment that was conducted was assess whether ethnicity is associated with suicide attempts across particular groups. A cross-sectional study was used to obtain the information on suicide attempt and suicidal completion. Interview was conducted to all participants to collect ethnicity and the structured interview for DSM-IV was used for the diagnosis of our patient. Patients were categorized in two groups: attempters if they attempt at least once during their life and non-attempters if they never attempt suicide during their life. At least ten different cohorts such as age, gender, diagnosis, duration of illness and a history of alcohol or substance abuse were used. Also the patients were separated by bipolar and schizophrenia disorders.

Durkheim was a functionalist, and theorised that a holistic social narrative could be identified which would explain individual behaviour. He argued that, whilst society was made up of its members, it was greater than the sum of its parts, and was an external pressure that determined the behaviour of the individuals within it. At that time, suicide rates in Europe were rising, and so the causes of suicide were on the agenda. Since suicide is seen as an intrinsically personal and individual action, establishing it as having societal causes would be a strong defence for Durkheim’s functionalist perspective. Durkheim used the comparative method to study the official suicide rates of various European countries. While he was not the first to