Two Syndromes of Suicide

Abstract

People who kill themselves are grouped together as suicides on the basis of that one action, yet they can hardly be considered to be a homogenous class. Attempts to define sub-categories among suicides can be made in a number of different ways, none by itself entirely satisfactory. Differentiation by psychiatric diagnosis is one possibility, but is difficult to achieve and throws little light on the undoubted contribution of social factors. Sociological studies have usually persisted in regarding all suicides as intrinsically similar, and have sought to relate variations in rates between different sections of the community in terms of general social variables such as status integration, social isolation, anomie and the like. Yet suicides are not a uniform group, and relatively little can be achieved while this fact is ignored.