Mental Illness And Suicide

• When trying to develop the subject of sociology as a recognised social science, Durkheim aimed to study suicide objectively and scientifically. He tried to link suicide rates to social patterns such as the level of social integration and regulation.

  However, interactionists have drawn attention to the problems of studying suicide through crime statistics.
• •For Douglas suicide verdicts and the statistics based on them are the product of interactions and negotiations between those involved. •Coroners have to conduct an inquest before a verdict of suicide is reached.•Suicide statistics are therefore subjective rather than objective.
• Suicide statistics depend on the interactions between coroners, relatives, friends, doctors, colleagues etc.
• Families could press a coroner for a verdict of death by misadventure rather than suicide


  • Because their religion forbids suicide
  • They fear the social judgement of a suicide verdict
• A coroner could be more likely to conclude a verdict of suicide based on a history of mental health issues
• The death could have been accidental (e.g. overdose, car accident etc.)
• Corroners Common Sense Theory

  Atkinson argues coroners have common-sense theories (sterotypes) about the ‘typical’ suicide.  Deaths involving a hanging, overdose  and or recent bereavement fitted this category. Deaths that don’t fit into this category (e.g. road accident, drowning etc. may be less likely to be categorised as suicide). Thus what counts as ‘suicide’ is socially constructed.
• •Like with suicide, interactionists reject official statistics on mental illness, because they regard these as social constructs of mental health professionals.
• Paranoia As A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  •Lemert argues that paranoia occurs as people who don’t fit in (but who are of otherwise sound mental health) are excluded by others.•This could lead to secondary deviance and further exclusion by the group, and discussions of how to ‘deal’ with this person.•This confirms his suspicions that people are conspiring against him, and the group’s suspicion that he has mental health problems.•This could eventually lead to psychiatric intervention and ‘mental patient’ becoming his master status.
• A person is labelled as mentally ill and enters a psychiatric hospital

  The insanity role is confirmed and the career of the psychiatric patient begins
• What happens when a patient enters a psychiatric hospital

  Mortification - patient's identity is replaced by one defined by the institution through removal of personal clothing and possessions, lack of privacy, hospital routines, obeying hospital staff
• Some inmates become institutionalised, unable to re-adjust to the outside world
• Others resist their situation in the psychiatric hospital