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Essay on A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective on Suicide
The psychiatric and the sociological literature on suicide are at variance noticeably in the role attributed to alcohol abuse as an antecedent of suicide. Consequently, a large number of psychiatric and epidemiological studies single out alcohol abuse as an important risk factor in suicide. In contrast, the alcohol factor is not generally considered in sociological studies on suicide. The symbolic interactionist approach understands the social world to be constituted by human acts of meaning and value. This social world is both the product of these human acts, while at the same time human beings are themselves the product of this social world. These acts of meaning and value are symbolically constructed and mediated and can only be appreciated "from the inside." Hence it tends to adopt a phenomenological methodology.
Lonergan describes this approach to the social world in the following terms: "Its subjective dimensions are the constituting intentionalities of embodied consciousness; its objective dimensions are the form in which the world appears for this consciousness. It is difficult to provide a more precise account of the symbolic interactionist position because it tends to adopt a phenomenological approach. Hence it does not have as clear an anticipation of the structure of the data, as found in functionalism and conflictualism. (Stack, Steven. 1982)
Durkheim described suicide as a private act that lacked social approval. He thought that if he could identify social influences, he could establish sociology. He found that suicide was not a fad or the product of insanity. He examined suicide rates records in and around France. He found that some people were more likely than others to commit suicide. He found that men, Protestants, wealthy people, and unmarried people had higher suicide rates compared to women, Catholics and Jews, the poor and married people. According to Durkheim, these differences corresponded to people’s degree of social integration. More specifically, people with strong social ties committed suicide less frequently.....................
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