Les causes du suicide : pathologie individuelle ou sociale? Durkheim, Halbwachs et les psychiatres de leur temps (1830-1930)

Abstract

The article questions the link between individuals and society and the ideas of psychological causality set out by Durkheim in Suicide, and puts them into historical perspective, considering previous readings and the critical revisionist perspective by Halb- wachs in 1930. First, we consider the ways in which Durkheim interpreted psychiatric theories which explained social facts through individual pathology. We then show that this Durkheimian construction involves the rejection of individual motive and replaces it by a different psychological interpretation which is based on socially determined unconscious mechanisms. We underline the fact that this theoretical construction had several difficulties even in relation to the empirical findings of the period and that it leads us to question the Durkheimian typology of suicide. Finally, we consider the way in which, some 30 years later, Halbwachs was able largely to resolve these difficulties by abandoning the theoretical axioms which Durkheim had placed at the heart of sociological analysis.