Why do people commit suicide? Durkheim’s surprising conclusion

According to the World Health Organization, an estimated one million individuals die by suicide every year. While many do articulate their mental struggles, many tragically around them feel it's only a passing phase and do not see it as a genuine call for help.

French sociologist Emile Durkheim researched the rate of suicide within France, England, and Denmark in the 1890s, and wrote up his findings in Suicide: A Study in Sociology. His finding? Suicide is not an individual act but a social act.

Durkheim concluded that while suicide was a solitary act, the causes had significant links to various social factors. He rejected the various other factors such as hereditary, climate, mental alienation, race, and imitation as the cause of suicide.

Durkheim's statistical research found that in every society, the rate of suicide is constant. It occurs among those people who either had too much or too little interdependence with others in their society.

Types of Suicide

Durkheim classified different types of suicides on the basis of different types of relationships between the person and his or her society.

(1) Egoistic suicide:

According to Durkheim, when a person becomes socially isolated in society he destroys himself. This is the suicide of a person who lacks self-less feelings and is usually cut off from the mainstream of society

(2) Altruistic suicide:

This kind of suicide results from the over integration (sacrifice) of the individual. The person is of secondary importance within a group, culture, or society, for example – soldiers in an army, or a person that has fallen into a cult.

(3) Anomic suicide:

This type of suicide is due to the uncertainty of social equilibrium, perhaps by a recession or a pandemic. There is rapid negative social change in which the individual loses a sense of self

(4) Fatalistic suicide:

This type of suicide is due to overregulation in society. There is no hope for change in a controlled ecosystem with little or no self-determination. Stagnation is the hallmark. Rules overpower individuality.

Bottom line: Durkheim stressed the concept of balance in a happy and contented life. Balance ensures growth as an individual and secures mental peace and well-being. In all the suicide cases he studied, individuals had lost that sense of balance.