Durkheim-Sociological Issues Surrounding Suicide

Emile Durkheim was one of the most influential people to write about suicide and its causes. Suicide had previously been thought to be a moral and psychological problem whereas Durkheim related suicide to sociological problems in modern society. He believed and worked to prove that suicide was not related to individualism but linked to the effects of the external influences of modern society. External social influences upon an individual covered the broad and varied aspects such as culture, religion and family. Durkheim believed that suicide was directly related to the level of social integration and/or regulation of a person in society. He developed groups into which an individual was categorised according to their level of integration or regulation. Although he received criticism at the time, his findings still have a great influence on modern sociologists; with many of their theories being based upon his initial findings.
One of the main concerns of Durkheim in the late 1800’s was to prove that sociology was different to psychology, especially in relation to suicide. He worked to prove that suicide was a social fact and that the incidence of suicide correlated with the social conditions the individual was experiencing or had experienced at some stage in their life. Durkheim (1938) gives the following description ‘A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint; or again, every way of acting which is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing in its own right independent of its individual manifestations.’ Durkheim believed that despite what we might like to think as independent individuals, most of our thoughts, ideas and inclinations ‘are not developed by us but come to us from without’ thus re-iterating the power and influence of society. The individual was thought to be somewhat constrained by ‘social facts’ which is seen as a way of conforming in society. Durkheim

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