Causes of Suicide

2145 Words5 Pages

Causes of Suicide This essay examines the reasons why a person of good physical health decides to terminate their own life. It does not consider euthanasia, assisted or forced suicide. Compared to most aspects of psychological health it is limited in scope for research – no “follow-up” can be performed, if the act is completed, and no ethical panel would approve experiments to demonstrate a causal link. Suicide has “no one single cause or stressor” according to the Lancet 2011. Before elaborating on what causes suicide it should be understood what we mean by cause. The Oxford English Dictionary defines cause as “a person or thing that gives rise to an action, phenomenon or condition.” This essay will in part examine the methods employed by suicidal patients though this is secondary to whatever caused them to make this decision. The essay will consider the epidemiology of suicide (also regarding suicide clustering) followed by the potential genetic risk factors. This will be followed by the psychological factors such as depressive disorders, and finally the environmental risk factors such as low socioeconomic status and substance abuse. Another complication in analysing causes of suicide is the variation between cases. Some will be clearly planned events, with finances and family situations adjusted beforehand, notes written. Others will be on the spur of the moment, with difficulty establishing whether it was deliberate or accidental. Some will be violent, immediate acts whilst others will be drawn out affairs with low lethality (dependent on availablilty of help). Most importantly, some individuals will not succeed – or chillingly, not at first. One of the greatest predictors for completed suicide is attempted previous suici... ... middle of paper ... ...eView Marusic,A. (2008) Editorial: Does Suicide Know the Points of the Compass?OpenUrlCiteView McGirr,Alexander (2007) An examination of DSM-IV depressive symptoms and risk for suicide completion in major depressive disorder: A psychological autopsy studyOpenUrlCiteView Mesoudi (2009) The Cultural Dynamics of Copycat SuicideOpenUrlCiteView Nordentoft,Merete (2011) Absolute Risk of Suicide After First Hospital Contact in Mental DisorderOpenUrlCiteView Ortigo, Westen, and Bradley (2009) Personality subtypes of suicidal adultsOpenUrlCiteView Pompili,M. (2009) Substance abuse, temperament and suicide risk: Evidence from a case-control study.OpenUrlCiteView Roy,Alec (2011) Resilience mitigates the suicide risk associated with childhood traumaOpenUrlCiteView Roy,Alec (2009) Gene-Environment Interaction and Suicidal BehaviorOpenUrlCiteView Zai CC. (2011) Brain-deriv

Edna's Struggles With Depression
1026 Words | 3 Pages
Lickerman MD, Alex. "The Six Reasons People Attempt Suicide." Blog. Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 29 Apr. 2010. Web. 25 July 2011.
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Surviving Suicide: Isolated by Social Stigmas
2023 Words | 5 Pages
Suicide is the eleventh most common cause of death in the United States. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a person takes their own life once every fourteen minutes in the United States (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention [AFSP], 2011). Still, with suicide rates so high, suicide is a taboo topic in our society. Though suicide is intended to end one person’s pain, it causes an immeasurable amount of pain and suffering to loved ones close to the deceased.
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The Growing Problem of Teen Suicide
2340 Words | 5 Pages
There are many risk factors associated with suicidal ideation and attempts. Risk factors include self-destructive behavior which may be related to life events, unfavourable home environments, or a genetic component. Personality traits like aggression and hostility or feeling introverted or hopeless play a role in suicides. Loss of control, poor problem solving techniques, or rigid cognitive life styles are also characteristics of suicides. Similar traits are found in depressive behaviors. Teenagers may have been exposed to others who have had suicidal behaviors.
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A Biological Look at Suicide
2783 Words | 6 Pages
The problem of suicide ravages the minds of its survivors – of philosophers – and, more recently, of psychologists. We simply cannot understand it. Why suicide? While many non-biological scientists are inclined to define suicide as a conscious act – thereby excluding, perhaps, all non-human self-inflicted deaths (1), (2) – lets us stick with the more basic definition of suicide as self-murder, with or without cognitive "knowledge" or "intent" (***). And, as the concerned psychologists plunge on in their direction, let us examine this problem from a different standpoint, that of biology. In order to make sense of the biology of suicide, however, we must first understand the more general omnipresent phenomenon: death....
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Perspectives on Suicide
802 Words | 2 Pages
Khan, M. M., & Mian, A. I. (2010). ‘The one truly serious philosophical problem’: Ethical aspects of suicide. International Review Of Psychiatry, 22 (3), 288-293. doi:10.3109/09540261.2010.484017
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Causes Of Suicide Essay
713 Words | 2 Pages
Around one million people in the United States commit suicide every year. To put that in perspective, it’s around one death every forty seconds. It can happen to anyone, it doesn’t discriminate based on race, age, or gender. It tends to happen to the people we least expect it too. There are many reasons and causes for suicide. It can happen all of a sudden or it can take years for someone to take his or her own life. The main causes for suicide are depression, stress, and drug abuse or alcohol problems.
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The Tragedy of Suicide
2350 Words | 5 Pages
There are two main threads of suicide. The social or institutional suicide and individual or
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Depressed and Suicidal Patients
1198 Words | 3 Pages
The thought of life coming to an end is a scary thought for anyone, but for someone who is depressed and suicidal it may seem to them as a release of some kind. In reality is suicide going to solve these patient’s problems? The patient may think so, but it will not solve any issues or problems. Suicide is a pertinent solution that no one can return from. My experience with depressed and suicidal people or patients is small. This is why I chose to write about patients who are depressed and suicidal. Even though my experience is small. I want to learn what can be done for these patients, and how I can be a better advocate for them.
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Suicide from a Psychological, Sociological and Anthropological Perspective
1263 Words | 3 Pages
Suicide is a sad story many people are reluctant to approach. But when somebody nearest to them kills themselves, they feel the compelling guilt of trying to understand the motive behind the death. It is a complex and rather devastating subject. Many who kill themselves can never come back to tell us what happened and why it did. Suicide takes an emotional toll on it's survivors and wreck havoc in the wake of the surrounding victims. What causes suicide is a probing series of many theories, and yet not one definitive answer. The prevention of suicide is also difficult to pinpoint, but only because the intent is unknown. The importance of researching the motives of the suicidal is essential to modern humanity as a whole, because in the era we live in, suicide rates are climbing faster than ever. Understanding the driving force behind suicide is what can help the field of social science to save the conscience mind of many people from self-destruction - and save their lives, and the emotions of their loved ones.
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Euthanasia Should Be Legal
2051 Words | 5 Pages
Rurup, M. L., Pasman, H. R. W., Goedhart, J., Deeg, D. J. H., Kerkhof, A. J. F. M., & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, B. D. (2011). Understanding Why Older People Develop a Wish to Die. The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 32(4), 204-216.
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Suicide Prevention
1876 Words | 4 Pages
“Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain” (I-10). Ending a life is a big step in the wrong direction for most. Suicide is the killing of oneself. Suicide happens every day, and everyday a family’s life is changed. Something needs to be done to raise awareness of that startling fact. Suicide is a much bigger problem than society will admit; the causes, methods, and prevention need to be discussed more openly.
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The Problem of Teenage Suicide
1928 Words | 4 Pages
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, scientific evidence has shown that almost all people who take their own lives have a diagnosable mental or substance abuse disorder, and the majority have more than one disorder. In other words, the feelings that often lead to suicide are highly treatable. That’s why it is imperative that we better understand the symptoms of the disorders and the behaviors that often accompany thoughts of suicide. With more knowledge, we can often prevent the devastation of losing a loved one.
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Suicide among college students
2673 Words | 6 Pages
Suicide has become a critical, national problem and the extent of this is mind-boggling. Suicides have been proven to be one of the leading causes of death among college students. According to Webters dictionary “suicide is the act killing oneself on purpose”. It derived from the Latin sui, meaning “self”, and caedere, which means “to kill”. But this is just a definition, because an actual suicide holds different meanings to people such as tragic, shocking, a relief, a cry for help, a shame, heroic, the right choice, punishment, revenge, protest, anger, a mistake, desperate, hurtful and many more. But why do people, like college students who have their entire future ahead of them, simply give up hope and turn their heads away from life and commit suicide. There are several causes of suicide, recent incidents of suicide on college campuses, warning signs from a suicidal. I blame the Constitution and the United States law for not taking any hard initiative on the subject of suicide. I also impose the choice of the media, which is reflecting and portraying suicide towards a wrong direction. However most important questions remain: can the growing epidemic of suicide be solved, what are communities doing about it and what can they do to help?
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Is Suicide the Solution?
1534 Words | 4 Pages
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Print. The. Suicide and Suicidal Behaviors. Suicide : Medline Plus.
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Cause And Effect Essay About Suicide
1001 Words | 3 Pages
Suicide is one of the most common death around the world. Life is just taking away very easy by someone or yourself. We have study the causes of someone killing themselves, but our human behavior can easy change and eventually make that deciduous. The causes and effects of suicide are depression, the past meaning your life before, and feeling unloved or lonely. The effects are the people that loved you are going to be depress, never reach those goals that you set for yourself, and people that loved you will feel the guilt.
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Causes of Suicide

Edna's Struggles With Depression

Surviving Suicide: Isolated by Social Stigmas

The Growing Problem of Teen Suicide

A Biological Look at Suicide

Perspectives on Suicide