2012-03-PSY-300-OL009

Identify and describe the four (4) types of suicide that Emile Durkheim delineated. Include in your description the particular way in which people who commit each type of suicide are connected to their society.

Emile Durkheim’s study led him to establish the four categories of suicides we know today, the first being Egoistic suicides. These are the result of excessive "individuation", or isolation from the social group as a whole. A lack of social integration will lead an individual to possibly take their life due to loneliness or depression. Durkheim found out that males, usually the single ones, were much more likely to commit suicide than those with better social connections (customs, jobs, and families). Males are more likely, as well, to seek out an individual life away from a community, which can lead to depression and killing oneself. Egotistic suicide is committed by people who are not supported by membership in a cohesive social group (www.sociologyindex.com). They are often loners. Extremely wealthy people are easily cut off from everyday society and don’t have a lot of support from society. These people tend to make and live by their own rules, for this reason if they begin to entertain suicidal thoughts it is hard for them to “shake it” (p. 219). The people who commit egotistic suicide may also believe that they have concurred everything and that there is “nothing else,” for him or her to do. No more goals, nothing else to live for.
Altruistic suicides are from high integration of society. This is the opposite of Egoistic suicide. These people will die for the common good, as their personal needs don't seem important compared to the group as a whole. An example would be military service, where a soldier is expected to die for his/her country; or where a mother pushes her child, who is in front of a moving