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Durkheim's Theory Of Suicide As A Sociological Perspective

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Social phenomena include all behavior, which influences or are influenced by organisms sufficiently alive to respond to one another (Wikipedia). The activities characterizing a society determine the beliefs, desires and motives of its individual members. Even a socially accepted behavior trend defines the behavior patterns of the individuals that function in that particular society. Durkheim views suicide as sociological phenomena and not solely as an individual’s reality, establishing its validity as a social fact. The main factor that propels Durkheim’s study of society is the belief that every sociological phenomenon is unique and warrants a different kind of study that emphasizes depth over myopic interpretations. The validity of the concept, which limits the interactions between social phenomena and human beings, is questioned. Since, Durkheim views suicide as sociological phenomena, it manifests itself as a social fact. Therefore, it falls under the realm of sociological study. Durkheim presents a conclusive critique of reductionist explanations of social behavior. According to Durkheim, suicide has, peculiar social characteristics and roots, which are not susceptible to explanations on the biological or psychological level. Therefore, he rejects the concept of accepting psychological explanations for social occurrences as these make the interpretations one-dimensional and vulnerable. In addition to this, psychological explanations for suicide fail to address it as a
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Firstly, he discovered that suicide rates depend on one’s integration in society, in other words, the level in which one feels accepted and connected to a group (Durkheim, 1951). Similar to Joiner’s ‘thwarted belongingness’, Durkheim says that those with a higher integration and belongingness in society have lower suicide rates than those who do not as they may feel not wanted and excluded (ibid.). However, less common but just like Joiner’s ‘perceived burdensomeness’, Durkheim states that those with very high integration also have high suicide rates. Moral regulation also plays a role in why one CS, this is because Durkheim discovered that those without a religion are more likely to CS than those who are actively in one. This is also because in some religions like Christianity, suicide is a sin.

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CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF EMILE DURKHEIM’S THEORY OF SUICIDE Emile Durkheim (April 15, 1858 -15 November, 1917) was a French sociologist and is mostly famous for his monograph the theory of Suicide (1897). He is also a French sociologist, social psychologist and a philosopher and has formally established the academic discipline and is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology. His most important work was apparently a case study of suicide which is a study of suicide rates in Catholic and Protestant populations, founded modern social research and served to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy. If we have a look at the suicide statistics it is known that precisely, 11.1 out of every 100,000 people have died by suicide (WHO 2011).

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Durkheim describes suicide as an action that a person takes with the awareness that it will lead to their death. He looked at various types of suicide including egoistic suicide and altruistic suicide that come from integration but he put much of his focus onto anomic suicide that comes from regulation. In preventing suicide we can note that fewer suicides occur during wars as this brings people together and gives the society a collective mentality once more. In preventing anomic suicide the society would need to become more of a collective. Thus separation between the group and the individual continues.

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Compared to countries outside Hong Kong, China, America, Singapore, Japan and Korean also find out the suicidal rate of elderly were also higher than any other people in different age group. Although sociologisit Emile Durkheim thinks that the suicide rates for a society typically shows a stable distribiution from year to year, there are always identification of periodic fluctuations and patterns of suicide

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