5 Social Suicide

Abstract

At first blush suicide seems like the ultimate private action. However, it is argued that social forces and social pathologies figure prominently in the dynamics of suicide interacting with more individual characteristics. Several examples of “social suicide” (intentional cotemporaneous self‐murder of two or more persons) are considered, including mass suicide, organizational self‐destruction, social analogues to individual suicide, and military suicide. Suicide prevention requires social, economic, and cultural transformations at the primary prevention level, not just individual psychotherapy and dispensing of the latest antidepressants.