Suicide a problem or a solution
The intent in this presentation is to discuss Suicide as a social concept using a theory espoused by Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). ... From there, Durkheim focused his attention on the social-structural determinants of mankinds social problems - suicide being one of them. To Durkheim, suicide could not be explained on a biologic level because it, like other social facts, endured over time. ... *3 Out of his theory evolved a kind of argument which was, that when interacting individuals create a reality (such as the phenomenon of suicide), the determining cause of this, or any social fact, should be sought among the social facts preceding it and not among the states of the individual consciousness. ... In relation to suicide, a significant increase in a particular group indicates therefore, that the social cohesion in that group has been weakened and its members are no longer sufficiently protected against existential crisis. In order to explain regular differential rates of suicide in various religious or occupational groupings, Durhheim studied the character of these groups. ... Religious groups, some corporate groups as well as legal structures tended by their deliberate structure and insistence on cohesion demonstrated a low incidence of suicide. The structures that have high suicide rates all have in common a relative lack of cohesion or a condition of relative normlessness. Rates, more than the specific incidence cooperated with a comparative analysis of various structures, which led him to conclude, in this procedure, that the general notion of cohesion or integration could account for a number of differing specific rates of suicide in a variety of group contexts. ... Durkheim demonstrated that suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration. ... Individualism, therefore, lends itself to an increased propensity to opt for suicide when extreme stress is manifested in an individual. Not because the individual has a biologic propensity to suicide but because the lack of social structure is broken down in a particular area or areas.