Free Essay Answering Why Study the Causes of Suicide in the United States

Suicide in the United States is rampant as shown in the statistics below. The causes of suicide in the country are associated mainly with mental health disorders such as depression, bipolar disease among others. Drug abuse is also a common cause of suicide in the country. Understanding the causes in a comprehensive and detailed manner can enable the formulation of mitigation strategies. The implementation of such strategies can prevent reduction of the number of death as a result of suicide. Human life is precious and it needs to be protected all times. It is thus essential to understand causes of suicide especially the youth and the young adults in high school and institutions of higer education.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Social Facts on Suicide

Recently, suicide is among the leading causes of death in the U S. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, approximately 43,000 Americans take their lives annually CITATION Apr16 \l 1033 (Kahn, 2016). Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, did a study about suicide. To some degree, Durkheim's explanation can be used to explain suicide cases because there are many different reasons why people take their lives today. For instance, a drug addict may feel a state of hopelessness and worthless and that their death will not affect the society which implies there is too little integration as explained by Durkheim.

The Questions formed: Can Durkheim study on suicide explain the causes of suicide today?

This study revealed that roughly 90% of people who commit suicide usually suffer mental illness, depression being the leading risk. Majority of the victims are typically overwhelmed by feelings of despair and sadness, and they think they have no other choice. Emily Durkheim conducted a study on suicide by comparing the rates between Protestants and Catholics. He discovered that there were fewer death cases among Catholics and also fewer women committed murder when compared to men. While attempting to identify why this was the case, he came up with four types of suicide. First, he split them regarding integration with the larger society. He thought that integrity affected suicide victims in two ways:

Egoistic suicide whereby there are too weak integration and individuals do not have sufficient bond, and thus they feel that their death wouldn't have a significant impact on the society hence, the felt a lot of ease to do it.

Altruistic suicide which is due to excessive integration and individuals are too much integrated to the extent of having no life on their own. Therefore, the only way to regain their life is by terminating it.

Second, he looked and separated between the amount of regulation that people own in their lives. The two types of suicides in this category include:

Fatalistic suicide where a person feels that they have too much control over their lives.

Finally, an anomic suicide which is committed as a result of minimal regulation over one's life (Crossman, 2017).

References

Crossman, A. (2017, August 7). The Study of Suicide by Emile Durkheim. Retrieved from Thought Co.: https://www.thoughtco.com/study-of-suicide-by-emile-durkheim-3026758

Kahn, A. (2016, January 27). Suicide and Suicidal Behavior. Retrieved from Healthline : https://www.healthline.com/health/suicide-and-suicidal-behavior#overview1