Suicide is not a great survival technique. Successful suicide is inevitably fatal. Animals, to which humans belong, have a strong survival instinct. They will avoid death under almost all circumstances; therefore, the idea of committing suicide mystifies our logic. The motives behind suicide, which is defined as “the intentional act of taking one’s own life” (Longman, 1988), can be as simple or as complex as life itself. The question of what causes to end one’s life pitifully, often in the prime, has always been of great concern to sociologists, psychologists and other scholars. Premature death from suicide “is estimated to be the tenth leading cause of death in the world, and as common as death from road-traffic accidents” (Jenking, 2002). This paper aims to discuss the multidimensional enigma of suicide from the perspective of three fundamental theories: sociological psychological and psychobiological.
It is important to look to sociology for answers concerning suicide, for this subject studies human social behavior, its development within human society and the impact of society on the personality. Sociological theories of suicide emphasize the role that society and culture play in this kind of self- destructive behavior. Emi
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Experts in this field contend that physical disorders of the brain underlie most psychiatric problems, including suicide. Difficulties in one’s life and problems within society push forward a suicide; however, they do not cause it. They view their future with despair and hopelessness. They occur under extremely rigid societal regulations which result in individual’s lack of freedom and absence of choice. Therefore different types of anti-depressant drugs that increase serotonin levels are generally very effective in decreasing suicidal thoughts and attempts. Famous English writer Edgar Allan Poe remarkably describes mania, or as he wrote “fearful agitation”, in a letter written after his suicide attempt:
I went to bed and wept through a long, long, hideous night of despair-When the day broke, I arose and endeavored to quiet my mind by a rapid walk in the cold, keen air-but all would not do-the demon tormented me still.
On the other hand, psychological theorists view suicide as an internal matter, and not strictly the result of external social forces.
Often adolescents are in this group. Actually, suicide of youth is a troubling fact of our contemporary society. Often people turn to suicide as an attempt to release feeling of anger, loss, guilt and frustration. Stress and pain are relative and highly subjective in their evaluation. With respect to religious societies, the rate of suicides is higher in those where rules are less rigid because religious integration in those societies is weaker. Freud believed that suicide was similar to murder but in reverse. Individuals experience loss of appetite, loss of interest in sex, weight loss, and sleep disorders, which lead to weakness and fatigue (Passer, 2002).
Approximate Word count =
1745
Approximate Pages =
7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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