Related topics: mental health
Suicide
hideSuicide (Latin suicidium, from sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the intentional taking of one's own life. Many dictionaries also note the metaphorical sense of "willful destruction of one's self-interest" (e.g., "political suicide"). Suicide may occur for a number of reasons, including depression, shame, guilt, desperation, physical pain, emotional pressure, anxiety, financial difficulties, or other undesirable situations. The World Health Organization noted that over one million people commit suicide every year, and that it is one of the leading causes of death among teenagers and adults under 35. There are an estimated 10 to 20 million non-fatal attempted suicides every year worldwide.
Views on suicide have been influenced by cultural views on existential themes such as religion, honor, and the meaning of life. The Abrahamic religions consider suicide an offense towards God due to religious belief in the sanctity of life. In the West it was often regarded as a serious crime. Japanese views on honor and religion led to seppuku, one of the most painful methods of suicide, to be respected as a means to atone for mistakes or failure, or as a form of protest during the samurai era. In the 20th century, suicide in the form of self-immolation has been used as a form of protest, and in the form of kamikaze and suicide bombing as a military or terrorist tactic. Sati is a Hindu funeral practice in which the widow would immolate herself on her husband's funeral pyre, either willingly, or under pressure from the family and in-laws.
Medically assisted suicide (euthanasia, or the right to die) is currently a controversial ethical issue involving people who are terminally ill, in extreme pain, and/or have minimal quality of life through injury or illness. Self-sacrifice for others is not usually considered suicide, as the goal is not to kill oneself but to save another.
The predominant view of modern medicine is that suicide is a mental health concern, associated with psychological factors such as the difficulty of coping with depression, inescapable suffering or fear, or other mental disorders and pressures. A suicide attempt is sometimes interpreted as a "cry for help" and attention, or to express despair and the wish to escape, rather than a genuine intent to die. Most people who attempt suicide do not complete suicide on a first attempt; those who later gain a history of repetitions have a significantly higher probability of eventual completion of suicide.
For more information about Suicide, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with suicide
Study identifies changes to DNA in major depression and suicide
Jul 30, 2008 |
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Autopsies usually point to a cause of death but now a study of brain tissue collected during these procedures, may explain an underlying cause of major depression and suicide. The international research group, led by Dr. ...
Cells that Avoid Suicide May Become Cancerous
Oct 01, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- When a cell's chromosomes lose their ends, the cell usually kills itself to stem the genetic damage. But University of Utah biologists discovered how those cells can evade suicide and start down the path ...
Social factors, not mental illness, to blame for high male suicide rate
Dec 01, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The popular assumption that most suicides are the result of depression or other mental illness has been challenged by a study of male suicide which will be launched later today by researchers at the University ...
Study: Teen suicide spike was no fluke
Sep 02, 2008 |
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A troubling study in the September 3rd Journal of the American Medical Association raises new concerns about kids committing suicide in this country. After a one year spike in the number of suicides, doctors were hoping to see ...
Students create portable device to detect suicide bombers (w/ Video)
Jun 24, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapons of suicide bombers, are a major cause of soldier casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. A group of University of Michigan engineering undergraduate students have ...
Wash. state woman 1st death under new suicide law
May 24, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Linda Fleming was diagnosed with terminal cancer and feared her last days would be filled with pain and ever-stronger doses of medication that would erode her mind.
Childhood trauma has life-long effect on genes and the brain
Feb 23, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- McGill University and Douglas Institute scientists have discovered that childhood trauma can actually alter your DNA and shape the way your genes work. This confirms in humans earlier findings in rats, that ...
Researchers discover a protein that amplifies cell death
Jan 15, 2009 |
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Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have identified a small intracellular protein that helps cells commit suicide. The finding, reported as the "paper of the week" in the ...
Sociologist Says This Month's Family Murder-Suicides Only 'the Tip of the Iceberg'
Jan 30, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A family sociologist at the University at Buffalo says this month's murder-suicides involving a family of four in Ohio and a family of five in California may be "just the tip of the iceberg."
Does work kill in the country of 35-hour week?
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Oct 06, 2009 |
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Short work weeks, enviably long lunches and vacations their American or Japanese counterparts can only dream of: French labour conditions are well-known to be among the most generous in the world.
Collective religious rituals, not religious devotion, spur support for suicide attacks
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Feb 18, 2009 |
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In a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychologists Jeremy Ginges and Ian Hansen from the New School for Social Research along with psychologist Ara Norenzayan from t ...
Variation of normal protein could be key to resistance to common cancer drug
Aug 28, 2008 |
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Researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UC SD) in La Jolla have found evidence explaining why a common chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, may not always work for every cancer patient. ...
Too many bars in rural America linked to high suicide rates instead of idyllic life
Sep 18, 2009 |
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There is a strong relationship between drinking and taking one's own life. In any given year, people with alcohol dependence (AD) commit more than 20 percent of suicides in the general population; some 80 to 90 percent of ...
What happens in Vegas? Place as a risk factor for suicide
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Nov 11, 2008 |
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Every day 85 Americans die by suicide and hundreds of thousands more make attempts every year. The vast majority of recent studies on suicide have focused on identifying psychiatric risk factors. However, a new study by Temple ...
Targeting teen depression
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Nov 13, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Psychologist Mona Taouk is developing a world-first questionnaire to identify young people at risk of depression and suicide.
