Suicide & Suicidal People:
History, Types, Consequences, Soul Work by Martyn Carruthers
In ancient Egypt, suicide was considered a humane way to escape intolerable conditions. However, by the time of the Roman Empire, the high suicide rate of slaves deprived slave owners of valuable property. Roman governments outlawed suicide across the Roman Empire, promising eternal torture. As Roman emperors were considered to be gods, imperial Roman law was both secular and religious. Many Roman laws were integrated into Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which threatened suicidal slaves with everlasting punishment.
Suicide was more respected in the East. Many martial codes included dispensations for suicide. In Japan, seppuku (hara-kiri) was ceremonial suicide amongst samurai. The Japanese kamikaze suicide bombers during World War II were considered heroes - and they may have helped inspire the suicide bombing that has since emerged as a desperate form of terrorism.
The laws of slavery remain. Until recently, suicide attempts were punishable by both religious and criminal law in Western and Islamic countries. Although criminal penalties for attempting suicide have been abolished across Europe, many governments prohibit anyone from assisting a person who chooses to die.
The true number of suicides may be double or triple the official figures, as many suicides are described as accidental deaths, accidental drug overdoses, or the results of schizophrenia or depression. Perhaps this official designation reduces family and community guilt. (This contrasts with jails, prisons and military forces, in which deaths by violence may be reported as suicide to reduce both workload and publicity.)
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Intelligence, Depression and Suicide
Intelligent people are more likely to suicide if continued life appears to lack sense. This seems especially true for people who step out of their communal or cultural mythos (shared subjective reality) to analyze it. Scientists, perhaps especially psychotherapists, may find themselves increasingly detached from the relationship bonds that motivate people to continue trying. Other people consider it noble to suffer and to move on - even in the face of certain and painful death.
According to de Catanzaro (1981), a threshold intelligence is necessary for suicide. In a study of 85 countries, national IQ was significantly and positively related to the national suicide rates. More evidence for a positive relation of intelligence and suicide mortality is provided by the excess suicides in the Terman Study of Genius sample, relative to the general population.
Intelligence is not always a survival trait. Less intelligent people may persevere, while more intelligent people may become depressed and give up.
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Euthanasia: Assisted Suicide
Some people request assistance to end their suffering by voluntary death. Such requests are usually by people with incurable illnesses and/or extreme physical suffering. Some countries seek to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Euthanasia is now openly available in Colombia and Holland; and Switzerland does not label assisted suicide as a crime. The morality of euthanasia and the role of physicians who treat terminally ill patients is a hotly debated issue. Imperial Roman laws remain - people are property and people choosing to die must be criminal, insane or damned.
Some people wish to control the timing and manner of their own deaths. Opponents claim that vulnerable people may be coerced into suicide for religious, financial or social benefits. Most opposition to euthanasia is based on a concept that people should not control their own deaths - that control is deferred to chance, gods, murderers and courts.
In many countries, a patient can refuse medical treatment, which legally obligates physicians to forgo treatment, even if this will result in death. However, laws that permit allowing a person to die may prohibit assisting a person to die.
Progressive laws in Holland, Belgium and Switzerland require that, for assisted suicide to be legal, suffering must be continuous and unbearable; with safeguards that a person has to be of sound mind, a doctor must get a second opinion and only a medical doctor - not the family - can legally administer a lethal drug.
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Meaning of Life
A decision to die often represents a decision that "life does not make sense". Although decisions to suicide may be made as a result of pain, depression, disease or drugs; emotions such as guilt, anger, sadness and fear may play a strong role.
* Guilt or shame about having harmed important others
* Anger or rage about lost property or violated values
* Sadness or sorrow about lost opportunities for happiness
* Fear or anxiety about future suffering
A suicidal tendency may be a basis for a diagnosis of psychotic depression, leading to the prescription of psychoactive drugs and perhaps forcible imprisonment. Suicide may also follow a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or other severe psychosis.
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Suicide and Sense of Life
If life seems to lack sense, or if death seems to make more sense than life, then suicide may appear to be a solution. A meaningless life appears to underlie many justifications for suicide, and is strongly connected to chronic depression.
Our Sense of Life seems to be strongly related to our relationships. Any person who lacks close or meaningful relationships and has no sense of life purpose, can be considered a suicide risk, even if the person is physically healthy and has material success.
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Causes of Suicide
Although the alienation of modern society may contribute to increased suicidal acts, suicidal depression is more likely following a death of a partner, childlessness, residence in a large city, high standard of living, bankruptcy, mental disorders and physical illness.
Adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) and people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have a higher risk of life-threatening or suicidal behavior. (Military personnel who commit murder or other atrocities may suicide after a period of PTSD, and/or substance abuse and/or depression. Their survival often depends on their ability to justify their behavior. Medals may help.)
Another source of suicidal behavior is cult membership, especially if the cult is exposed as false. A lost sense of life can result in a found sense of death.
Soulwork Therapeutic Coaching helps people find rapid solutions for these issues.
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Honorable Suicide
An adult who jumps into a dangerous situation in an attempt to rescue a person - or even an animal - is often considered a hero, even if he or she dies in the attempt.
In the world of terrorism, suicide bombers seem to express the anger and outrage of entire communities. In contrast to most suicides, in which family members often suffer guilt and depression, the families and communities of a suicide bomber may perceive their dead member as a hero, and celebrate this heroism against their enemies. Yet their less-dedicated enemies may call them cowards.
Suicide bombers are predictably young men, about 18 - 27 years old, who have identified with victims in their family and community. A suicide bomber may be a first son, who, in most families, will carry the largest burden of injustices to the family. (The eldest daughter may take the systemic position of a first son perceived as weak.)
People who have identified with victims may be unable to even imagine the happiness of partnership and parenthood. Instead, Victim Identification is characterized by anger, rage, suspicion and aggression - and it may be successfully and rapidly treated with Systemic Coaching.
Occasionally suicide is connected with insurance fraud, where people attempt to provide for their families by dying. As life insurance does not pay for suicidal deaths, a suicide may be contrived to appear as accidental death or murder.
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Attempted Suicide
Attempted suicide may be an appeal for help and attention. Expectations of help may underlie many suicidal acts. Some attempted suicides are accidentally fatal, while "failed" fatal suicides may be later dismissed as "attention seeking".
Some "deaths from misadventure" seem to be related to suicidal behavior. Young adults who die while attempting extreme physical or military feats may be in this category. People who do not fear death may be mistakenly called "brave". Such people may also be described as having a "death wish".
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Fatal suicide
A fatal suicide usually causes grief amongst family and friends; and guilt for people who feel that they might have prevented it. A suicidal death that becomes a "taboo" topic in a family can have long-term consequences. A member of the next generation may die to "follow" the dead person. (This phenomena is well described in therapeutic coaching, where it is called Dead Person Identification or DPI. Therapeutic Coaching includes complete systemic solutions for resolving Dead Person Identification).
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Teen Suicide
As many teenagers live in heightened awareness of each others moods and actions, a suicide by one teenager may initiate one or more copycat suicides. A teenager may suicide to punish parents, family or friends who were insufficiently interested in the teenager's life. Suicides of parents, celebrities or other role models may also motivate teenagers to kill themselves.
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Emotional Consequences of Suicide
Suicide has a powerful emotional impact on family members and friends. A suicide may cause family and friends to feel guilty, helpless and rejected. Also, someone has the burden of discovering the dead body. Parents in particular may suffer huge shame and guilt - their child refused their "gift of life".
Survivors may avoid talking about the person who died - the topic may become taboo within a family or community. Other people may avoid the survivors. Most people involved with suicide go through a similar grieving as other bereaved people.
Although support groups may be helpful for grieving suicide survivors, the children of a suicide may need special attention to avoid identifying with the dead parent - a situation referred to in therapeutic coaching as dead person identification. Therapeutic coaching includes solutions for victim identification, hero identification, lost identity and identity conflict. (see Schizophrenia)
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Dead Person Identification
Some signs of identification with a dead person are:
* Chronic sadness and melancholy
* Preoccupation with death and dying
* Fascination with cemeteries
* Fascination with places where people died
* May engage in risky sports (no fear of death)
* May avoid becoming a parent
* May fear that own children will die
* May appear to have "psychic" sensitivity
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Suicide Reduction and Sense of Life
Many organizations help prevent suicide by maintaining telephone "hot lines" to support lonely and desperate individuals. This emotional first aid can steer people towards support groups and community activities that increase a person's sense of family, community ... and life.
Although early recognition and treatment of depression and other mental disorders is important, the main factors behind suicidal behavior appear to be the relevance of living and the quality of relationships. Psychoactive drugs may provide a temporary space to heal, yet cannot increase sense of life. Soulwork Therapeutic Coaching provides relationship assessment tools, as well as an enormous number of unique and pragmatic skills for resolving life challenges.
To find sense of life, many people focus on their children's lives, and/or turn to clubs and other organizations. They may find purpose in hobbies or community involvement. Some people turn to religions, others to television, alcohol or drugs. Soulwork Therapeutic Coaching helps people access and experience an "integrated connectedness" (the soul of Soulwork) which provides a profound and lasting sense of life direction and life purpose.
Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2002, 2004 All right reserved.http://www.soulwork.net/sw_articles_eng/suicide.htm  
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