Emile Durkheim Theory Of Suicide

Durkheim proceeded to distinguish suicide into four different groups that related to the individual’s integration into society and in turn the social regulation of society over its members. ‘Consequently, we shall be able to determine the social types of suicide by classifying them not directly by their preliminarily described characteristics, but by the causes which produce them…. We will first seek the social conditions responsible for them; then group these conditions in a number of separate classes by their resemblances and differences, and we shall be sure that a specific type of suicide will correspond to each of these classes.’ (Durkheim, 1897) The four suicide groups were identified as Egotistic, Anomic, Altruistic and Fatalistic.

Despite the lack of research done by sociologists on the topic of suicide, little is known about what societies perspective of it. In this research paper, the sociological aspects of suicide are going to be brought up. The way suicide deals with deviance and how a particular Sociologist studied different theories. The analyzation of four journal articles that are cited back up my answer in my research paper. My research question is, Does the Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why impact societies viewpoint on the sociological issues of suicide? Providing evidence to prove this true through the general thoughts and knowledge I have cumulated in Introduction in Sociology. Oddly enough there is not much research in the general category of suicide in sociology

Egoistic suicide which is when individuals are not integrated well enough into society for example people who live alone compared to those who live with family. Secondly Altruistic suicide which is when individuals are felt to be too integrated into society causing suicide, for example members of the armed forces were said to have greater suicide rates than civilian personnel as they were too strongly integrated into a united body. Durkheim also put forward the idea of Anomic suicide, this is when the norms and values in society become unclear or confused in times of great social change and an individual is not taught to adapt to changes well enough. For example an unexpected death of a family member is sudden social change which can cause Anomic suicide. Lastly, he suggested Fatalistic suicide. Fatalism is the excessive amount of regulation which leads to one committing suicide.

“Suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result” (Durkheim 34). Suicide is a phenomenon that has plagued our world since the beginning of time. It currently accounts for the second leading cause of death in people ages ten to twenty-four years old (Garni Powerpoint). This means of ending your own life is something we can prevent as a society. If we can eliminate societal pressures and stereotypes we can all be treated equally. All suicides during a certain time period are grouped together, when in all reality we should be treating each situation as it’s own. Durkheim states “...with it’s own unity, individuality, and consequently its own nature- a nature, furthermore, dominantly social”.

The first sociologist to theorize on suicide and its sociological interpretations was Emile Durkheim. Durkheim worked during the late 1800’s identifying social structures as the key determinant in self-destructive behaviour. In his work Suicide: A study in Sociology, Durkheim stated that “suicide rates increase when a society’s value system breaks down.”2 Durkheim believed that the shared values of a society and the mechanisms in place that ensure that its members adhere to these values, is interpreted as a person’s “social structure.” Durkheim suggested two basic factors in social structure that heavily influence the incidence of suicide. These are regulation and integration. He believed that an individual needs to become part of, and find direction in his own society. Without these factors in place, suicide becomes a common substitute. Teens are often anxious about fitting in to their society (especially among peer groups) so it is clear that integration is essential to adolescence. Durkheim also suggested that it is these two factors

In The Politics of Suicide, Maria Teresa Brancaccio, Eric J. Engstrom, and David Lederer investigate and unravel the conceptualization and operationalization of suicide in the years leading up the Emile Durkheim. It wasn’t until the age of the Enlightenment that the concept of taking one’s own life was deemed worthy of scientific analysis (Brancaccio, Engstrom, & Lederer, 2013). It was during this time that police, physicians, and mental health care providers began to determine the indicators of such potential behaviors and began to see such rising trends as modern social dilemma (2013).

Durkheim does not see egoism, altruism, anomie and fatalism as types of suicide, but types of social structure that highlight the presence or lack of integration and regulation. It must be stressed that this excess/lack of integration and regulation are not seen as direct causes of suicide, rather Durkheim sees a number of voluntary deaths in society as inevitable; integration and regulation are merely prophylactic to suicidal impulses, which when taken to excess or dramatically reduced, fail to act as a preventative, and so suicides occur. This clarification is an important strength of Durkheim’s theory: it allows the biography of the individuals who kill themselves to vary, while still explaining underlying pressures/lack of to explain their deaths, and the varying suicide rates between groups.

The book “sociology” by john J. Mioni, express about one of the sociologist who studied suicide, which is one of the topics that connect with one of my event in my life. When I read about Durkheim, I love one of the quotes, which made me think too much and I connected with my event because one of my event is about suicide, and I believe is truth what Durkheim thought and said about suicide. We have to love who we are, not matter what but the reality is that we don’t love ourselves enough. As a result, I consider that we think through suicide when we feel like we can’t escape our problems, depressed, and do not find some other solutions to our problems, and there come the suicidal thought, and the first thing that we want is die. Therefore,

Durkheim believed that the suicide rate was a social fact; he found that social forces such as social integration, which refers to “an attachment to social groups” and social regulation, which refers to the “control of individual desires by group norms” (Fulcher and Scott, 2007, p.37) are factors external to the individual and determine levels of suicide in society. Durkheim found that suicide resulted from an imbalance of these two forces and developed a classification system. It was observed (Giddens, 2006, p.15) that egotistic suicides are common in social groups that lack sufficient integration, resulting in weaker social ties. For example lower suicide rates in times of social crisis such as war are attributed to higher social integration

Durkheim makes a very accurate argument about suicide and why it happens. There are many reasons why people commit suicide that are other than bad reasons. Everyone tends to think that suicides only happen when a person is feeling upset. But Durkheim makes an argument that suicide can happen even when a person is really happy. There are a lot of factors that can cause a person to commit suicide such as feeling upset, not belonging, being too happy, or even just a sudden change in life aspects can cause a person to commit suicide. Changes in the anomie of the population can really affect a person.

“Durkheim was the first to develop a methodology for studying suicide”. In 1897 he published Le Suicide, the first application of a social analysis. While writing his social analysis Emilie Durkheim debated that suicide was not just an individual choice. He suggested that society at large acted as a contributing factor to suicide.

Durkheim had multiple types of suicides and their causes. Two of these types of suicides include egoistic and anomic suicide. Egoistic suicide is when social integration is too weak that it causes suicide (cite; notes 2015). This can happen when religious, domestic, and political social groups disintegrate with an individual and leaves that person

This is evident in Durkheim’s writing in Suicide. Suicide The intent of Durkheim’s writing was to discover why there was such an increase of suicide rates as nations became industrialized and consumer capitalism became dominant. Durkheim’s

When it comes to suicide often as individuals we describe suicide as something that is caused by an individuals experience that may include how someone lives, personalities, and religion. While also including that there are no biological influence that may be passed on from genetics, genes, and heredity. However, Durkheim argues against suicide being caused by social factors and how involved or integrated the individuals is in connection to society. Usually when asked why someone decided to kill himself or herself we usually think of what he/she was thinking about in their mind. Almost pertaining to the individuals decision we wouldn’t be thinking about society as something that could have caused suicide but instead we would shift our focus on the individual. However, it seems as if the individuals decision is not the sole focus of suicide. Though the acts are committed by a single person there are various reasons someone would commit this act.

In 19th century in Europe there is rapid increase in suicide. The case of death can be positive action such as jumping from an upper window or negative action such as hunger strike. Durkheim eliminates psychotic paranoid suicide because it is non sociological explanation of suicide and it is not the result of self-concise aim. The factor correlation between mental disorder and self-destruction varies considerably.