Suicide: Definitions, Demographics, and the Psychology of Suicide

On the Threshold of Eternity - Vincent Van Gogh
On the Threshold of Eternity - Vincent Van Gogh
Eleventh leading cause of death in the US. Annually, 700,000 attempt suicide. What exactly is defined as suicide? Who takes one's own life?

The number of U.S. citizens who attempt suicide annually is simply staggering, and many actually succeed in taking their own life. This leaves many wondering what psychological factors are at play. Many are left asking, "Why?" as suicide goes against all of our most innate survival instincts.

This article will review the various suicidal actions, as well as the demographics of suicide pertaining to sex, ethnicity, age, mental health, occupation/education, and finally culture which. we will finally link to the major few most well-proven theories as to why any human being would opt to end his/her life.

Types of Suicidal Actions

There are four main types of suicidal actions. These four variations of suicidal action are: suicide attempts, suicidal gestures, suicidal gambles, and suicide equivalents.

  1. Suicide Attempts -- A serious and often fatal action undertaken by an individual who is attempting to end their own life. Often, miscalculation or intervention occurs, saving the individual who would have otherwise ended his/her life.
  2. Suicidal Gestures -- This involves an individual who partakes in an action, generally nonfatal, that hints at the desire to die. Typically, suicidal gestures are intended as a cry for attention or help.
  3. Suicidal Gambles -- A suicidal gamble involves an attempt at suicide undertaken by an individual who believe that he may be saved before his life ends. This person does not know whether or not he will be saved, though, so survival is a gamble.
  4. Suicidal Equivalent -- This individual does not actually attempt suicide. Instead, this person takes action that mimics leaving this world -- such as a boy running from home -- in an attempt to discover how others would react if he/she died.

All four of these actions can and do have different causes and effects. Often, a cry for help can turn into a successful suicide if an individual fails to seek help.

Demographics of Suicide

In the United States, at least 200,000+ persons attempt suicide annually. That equates to 1,500 attempts daily and approximately 30,000 of these individuals succeed each year. This translates into approximately 86 deaths daily. Most statistics were obtained from Suicide.org as well as a few from Davin L Gilles-Thomas' lecture "Abnormal Psychology. Mood Disorders: Suicide"

  • Gender-based Demographics -- Three times the number of women attempt suicide than men, although three times more men actually succeed in killing themselves.
  • Age-based Demographics -- Most suicides are attempted by individuals between the ages of 45-60, followed by those between the ages of 10-24.
  • Ethnically-based Demographics -- 90% of all suicides involve individuals of Caucasian ethnic origin. 73% of these suicides involve white males.
  • Occupational/Educational Based Demographics -- White collar workers are much more likely to commit suicide than blue collar workers. College students who are excelling in academics are also more likely to commit suicide.
  • Psychiatric-related Demographics -- Those with mental health issues, especially those that have been hospitalized for such problems are at a much greater risk of suicide, especially those with Bipolar Disorder, chronic alcoholism, and even more prominent in suicide victims is Major Depression.
  • Culture-based Demographics -- Culture is a major variable directly correlated with suicide rates. For example, the Aborigines of Australia, per 100,000 total deaths, 0 are caused by suicide. For the United States, this number is 12.2. For Hungary, this statistic is much higher at 40.7 deaths of 100,000 are caused by suicide.

Psychology of Suicide

The question as to why, psychologically, one would want to take their own lives is infamously difficult to answer. It goes against all of our most primally inherited survival instincts. Many different theories have been introduced and are well tested although there are so many that no one can effectively explain why the majority of people would actually take their own life. These are some of the most effective explanations:

  1. Cognition and beliefs;
  2. Communication;
  3. Grief and loss;
  4. A depressed or hopeless state; and
  5. Social factors.

Individuals come to the conclusion that it would be in their, or their world's best interest if they were to perish, the following theories explain why individuals come to this conclusion.

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Cognition, Belief and Suicidal Ideation

One's cognitions (beliefs, thought processes, etc.) often are shown to play a central role in ones psychological reasoning behind ending their own life. An individual contemplating the act of committing suicide will often do so because he or she wishes to make amends for something they may have done in their past. Perhaps, even, to rid themselves of thoughts deemed outright unacceptable. For example; an avid Christian woman, faithfully married for twenty years cheats on her husband, she cannot live knowing she has committed such a sinful action and for that, ends her own life.

Sigmund Freud, a famous Austrian neurologist of the mid-late nineteenth century, believed that suicide was a result of one turning aggression inwards back onto their own selves. For example, in the example used previously; if the husband had inadvertently discovered that his wife had been unfaithful to him, he will most likely feel infuriated at his wife. Although feeling fury at ones wife of 20 years is absolutely unacceptable, and so the aggression and fury is turned towards and felt against his own self.

Communication and the Connection to Suicide

It's been estimated that two-thirds of all suicide attempts are actually attempts to communicate something to another individual. For example: the desire for attention and affection or an attempt to make others feel guilty as if they were the cause. The methods used in these attempts -- attempts at communication -- are generally purposely nonlethal and is especially done when/where others, specifically the one who is supposed to feel the message, will be one of the first, if not the first, to discover.

Suicide and its Link to Grief and Loss

The loss of a loved one will generally result in an enveloping sense of hopelessness and despair. Sigmund Freud himself even said, in a note to his fiancee, "I have long since resolved on a decision, the thought of which is in no ways painful, in the event of losing you." This decision Freud mentions is the decision to commit suicide if he were to lose his fiancee.

This does not only include the loss of another living being, though. For example: According to Belen Ward, a writer for Toonaripost.com, the largest increase in the US suicide rates was during the Great Depression when it skyrocketed to 22.1 suicides/100,000 deaths, the all time high in the United States. The rate jumped 22.8% in the four years between 1928 and 1932. This is majorly due to so many losing money and therefor, hope.

Current State of Mind and its Link to Suicide

One's current state is generally the final deciding factor for an attempt at suicide. The intention to kill oneself is, by no means, a constant condition. The intention to take one's own life is state dependent. The idea, or intention tends to only arise when one is in a particular state of being. This shift in state is very easily seen in Bipolar Disorder patients in their sudden state-of-mind switch between mania to depression.

Evidence shows that suicide rarely involves an individual who is not currently suffering from a depressive episode. Interestingly, though, there is also evidence that suggests that when a person's depressive episode is just beginning to end that they are at the highest risk of suicide. This does make sense, when considered: Say you were driving to work and suddenly your car broke down in the middle of the freeway, you had to call your insurance company and have your car towed and given a ride to work only to have to pay $1000 for repairs. This event would be quite evidently stressful, even on a good day. Although, we can all agree that if this same event repeated itself just after finally receiving your car back from the mechanic, it would be indescribably, ineffably stressful. So much to the point where you had wished you were never born.

Social factors are also a major variable in causing and preventing suicidal actions among individuals.

Emile Durkheim's Theory on Suicide

One world renowned sociologist, Emile Durkheim, born in 1858 and is considered by many to be the father of sociology. He was credited with making sociology a science and having made it a part of the french academic curriculum as a social science. Durkheim identified and described three types of suicide. He pointed to social dynamics as the root cause of suicide; he believed that certain dynamics could lead an otherwise sane individual to commit suicide. The three types of suicide are:

  • altruistic suicide;
  • egoistic suicide; and
  • anomic suicide.

Altruistic suicide involves an individual who highly identifies with a given group's interests, morals, beliefs, and norms. This individual is so personally affiliated with their group that they would be willing to take their own life for the sake of ratifying the group's goals or perhaps because they broke the group's code. Examples of this would be the 900+ followers of Jim Jones at the Jamestown mass suicide in 1978 or perhaps the Japanese Kamikaze pilots of WWII.

Egotistic Suicide Theory

According to Durkheim, egoistic suicide involves an individual who is so weakly affiliated with their group that they have no emotional attachments to other individuals or the group as a whole. The individual loses social restraints and sense of commitment. This individual then decides that their passing would effect nobody aside him/herself.

Durkheim's Theory on Anomic Suicide

Anomic suicide is caused when one has no clear idea of what a social group's expectations are that causes a sense of normlessness, disorientation, and confusion. This uncertainty can cause feelings of loneliness and helplessness, therefor increasing risk of suicide among individuals. This often occurs during times of major rapid social changes when one's relation with their group is tested with a rapid and unanticipated change. The changes that Durkheim pointed out, for a macro scale, were: industrialization, urbanization, and modernization.

A person's reasons for committing suicide can be known, although this reason is often unique among the many individuals who attempt it, and so no one reason can be blanketed across all suicide victims. Chances are, individual suicide victims will fit into one of these categories, although no one suicide victim has the exact same reason for their actions so many separate theories have been made to adequately explain individuals, though no theories have been discovered that explain the whole of suicide victims.

Sources

In deep thought, I took the picture myself

Cameron Archom - Wordsmith, of sorts

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