Introduction
Suicide is a phenomenon that does not limit itself to any particular age. Statistics show it as an ever-increasing proportionate problem with the advance in age, the phenomenon occurring in all ages from the young child to the very old adult. Thus, the teenage group is affected by psychological problems more than any other age group. Suicide is one of the common problems that affected modern society. Homicide, suicide, and single-car accidents are the major causes of teenage death in this country. No other developed country has so severe a problem with violence.
Depression – the main cause
Depression is often cited as the main cause of suicide among teenagers. In the last decade, depression has increased significantly among adolescents. Clinical depression often plays a role in a teen’s suicide attempts or actual suicide. Data suggest that suicide rates over the last decade increased dramatically for teenagers and continue to increase significantly for younger teenagers (Jamison 34). The issues surrounding teen suicide are very complex, but experts who have analyzed the information on teen suicide have been able to draw several conclusions: suicide is dramatically reported in the news, particularly if there is a contagion of suicides (i.e., a group of teens in a school or other institution committing suicide). Clinical depression plays a role in some adolescent suicides. The rate of successful suicides among the youngest teenagers has risen several hundred percent. In a recent national survey of teenagers concerning their information level and attitudes toward youth suicide, Marcenko et al (1999) revealed that 60 percent of the adolescents in the survey knew another teen who had attempted suicide and 6 percent reported attempting themselves.
The question of what experiences are antecedent to teenage suicide attempts was addressed by Marcenko et al. (1999). They compared attempted teenage suicides with both depressed and non-depressed adolescents who never attempted suicide. They concluded that suicidal adolescents differed from the other two groups of teenagers in that they experienced more turmoil in their families, starting in childhood, and this turmoil did not stabilize during adolescence. Also, in their teen years, the attempted 7 suicides were more often sexually abused. The year before their attempts much experienced social instabilities such as a change in residence or the need to repeat a class in school. The issue of what precipitants occurred during the last 24 hours before a suicide attempt was addressed by Marttunen et al. ( 1993). Interpersonal separations and conflicts were the most common precipitants. Among those teens with weakened parental support, interpersonal separation was more often a precipitant. “According to Erikson, individuals attempt to resolve the issue of identity versus role confusion during the teenage years. Adolescents try to answer the question “Who am I?” to establish an identity in the sexual, social, ideological, and career domains” (Portes et al 2002, p. 148). This formulation suggests that both suicide and homicide are acts of aggression consequent to frustration. Suicide is viewed as the end product of aggression directed inwardly against the self.
Gender and racial differences
Researchers (Jamison 23; Choquet et al 649) found gender and racial differences in suicide attempts. There is the finding that the probability of a young African American female dying by homicide is four times that of a non-African American female. A young African American male is 11 times more likely to die by homicide than a non-African American male. In some cities, teenagers are plagued by so-called drive-by killings, often associated with gang violence. We also have examples of “wilding,” in which a large group of teenagers goes on a rampage, attacking persons and property. In middle and high schools, large numbers of teenagers suffer from extortion, threats of physical harm daily, and even “blitzing,” in which a group of students attacks one particular Student. Most recently, we have had reports of young adolescents abducting and murdering young children (Choquet et al 649). They found that adolescents who commit homicide differ from their matched control fellow adolescents in terms of having (1) criminally violent family members; (2) gang membership; (3) severe educational difficulties; and (4) alcohol abuse. The younger males then show the wish to kill and are killed in 58 percent of their notes and the wish to die in 23 percent. The pattern reverses itself in the older age group with 21 percent and 57 percent, respectively. One must conclude that the younger males, between twenty and thirty-nine, apparently are much more concerned than the older males, sixty and above, with the highly charged, more affect-laden, and, at the same time, more transient motives, “kill” or “be killed”. They are inclined to be much more intensely angry and hostile, full of hate and bitterness toward another person; or more depressed, self-disparaging, self-abasing, and guilt-ridden than the older males (Jamison 76).
Major depression
Lots of normal depressive episodes occur throughout adolescence, and many adolescents experience major depression. “Loss is another event which may precede adult and child/adolescent suicide attempts” (Morano et al 851). Two important aspects of major depression in a teenager are a prominent sad and dejected mood and a refusal to have any contact with his or her family (Jamison 65). Depressed teenagers also suffer from low self-esteem, high self-criticism, poor body image, loss of appetite, sleep problems, and fatigue. Some adolescents hide their depression by becoming overactive, sexually promiscuous, running away from home, and moving heavily into drugs and alcohol. Those with major depression are at very high risk for suicide. There are many suicide attempts among our teenagers, and unfortunately, some of them are successful. As mentioned earlier, the incidence of suicide among younger teenagers has risen dramatically in the last two decades. If a teacher suspects a teenager is in the high-risk category for suicide, she/he should get a highly qualified mental health professional to intervene immediately (Morano 851). A sense of being understood is very important to an adolescent and is a very important tool in interpersonal relationships. Adolescents are struggling to understand themselves. Also, “research has shown that from young adolescence through early adulthood, substance abuse and suicidal ideation are correlated” (Marchenko et al 121). If they have a feeling that their parents, their peers, and their siblings are trying to understand them, they will be encouraged and will try to cope and make courageous choices about their world. Youngsters who do not feel they are understood and do not feel they can understand themselves are subject to terrible fears, confusion, and depression, which in extreme cases can be the precursors of suicide attempts (Morano 851). Teenagers are still dependent upon his/her love objects for gratifications and as the process of identification has not been completed, turning of the hostility against and destroying the introjects within themselves is too painful and too frightening. Thus, teenagers rarely commit suicide, or even make overt suicidal attempts or threats, but rather express their self-destructive feelings in other ways. These may be called “suicidal equivalents,” that is, attenuated attacks on the introjected object which result in depressions, “accidental” injuries, antisocial acts (Morano et al 851), and the like all of which have the potentiality for ending in the destruction of the individual. These partial attacks on the self should be treated with the same caution as the more direct, overt self-destructive act in the adult.
The greatest need for the prevention of suicide
Probably the greatest need for the prevention of suicide is public education. In their efforts to give effective psychiatric treatment, educators and psychiatrists are still restrained by prejudice, the stigma that mental illness is disgraceful. People often feel that those who commit or try to commit suicide are weak, useless people. It is important to educate teachers and parents about the danger signals of suicide and to make psychiatric treatment readily available (Portes 148). Mental hygiene societies over the nation could greatly aid by tackling this practical problem and giving educational aid that would help teachers remove suicide from the list of major causes of death. Many health insurance policies have restrictions excluding shock therapy as a method of treatment, and yet at present, this may be the only effective way of quickly terminating a depressive psychosis (Portes 148). Often suicide is attempted when the patient appears to be recovering.
Conclusion
Parenthetically, it is recognized that suicidal reasoning has unconscious motivations and psychodynamic determinants. The implication is that if one knew the lethal modes of reasoning and the suppressed premises which lead to a deadly conclusion, then one might have effective clues to use in the prediction and prevention of suicide. It was found that teenage boys use more lethal means for their suicide attempts and consequently are more successful suicides than teenage girls who make more attempts with less lethal means. The responsibility for suicide prevention does not lie wholly with physicians, although early detection of depression and prompt suitable treatment is especially important. Laypersons can also do a great deal of preventive work. Families must also be educated on the need for the continued care of a depressive patient until he is fully recovered. When aggression, or perhaps better, motor activity, is inhibited in the teenager, the result can be a turning inward of the aggression with consequent resultant self-destructive tendencies.
References
Choquet, M., Kovess, V., Poutignat, N. (1993). Suicidal Thoughts among Adolescents: An Intercultural Approach. Adolescence 28 (111), 649.
Jamison, K.R. Nights Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide. Vintage; 1st Vintage Books Ed edition, 2000.
Jamison, K.R. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. Vintage; 1 edition, 1997.
Marcenko, M.O., Fishman, G., Friedman, J. (1999). Reexamining Adolescent Suicidal Ideation: A Developmental Perspective Applied to a Diverse Population. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 28 (1), 121.
Morano, Ch., Cisler, R.A., Lemerond, R. (1993). Risk Factors for Adolescent Suicidal Behavior: Loss, Insufficient Familial Support, and Hopelessness. Adolescence 28, 851.
Portes, P.R., Sandhu, D.S., Longwell-Grice. R. (2002). Understanding Adolescent Suicide: A Psychosocial Interpretation of Developmental and Contextual Factors. Adolescence 37, 148.