o changes within society and family organization. For example, divorce and death within a youths family tends to be a significant variable. In discussing sociological factors of youth suicide, it must also be mentioned that economic status is also a contributing factor. Although teens of all economic backgrounds commit suicide, among the economically deprived the numbers are significantly higher. Durkheim played a large role in studying the sociological influences on suicides. Many other researchers have followed his approach and sought to connect suicide to general social factors like the disintegration of communities and families, as well as economic distresses. Some sociologists have suggested that it is an adolescents interpretation of his social situation, rather than the situation itself that ultimately contributes to the suicide. Other sociologists have also acknowledged that a young individuals personality may influence the interpretation of a given social situation as grounds for suicide. It is at this point that sociological theories begin to merge with psychological interpretations of this subject. Psychological theories view adolescent suicide as an internal matter, and not strictly the result of external social forces. Sigmund Freud, the man known for founding the field of psychoanalysis, was also responsible for laying the groundwork for psychological thinking on self-destructive behaviour. Freud first came up with the idea that unconscious forces at work in the mind are behind human behaviour. He suggested that a natural inclination toward self-destruction, or death instinct, is the primary cause of suicide. This inclination, or instinct located in the unconscious mind, is in constant conflict with the instinct for survival, or life instinct.Freud believed that suicide was similar to murder, only its opposite. He claimed that suicide was murder in reverse.4 By this he meant that when an individual kills himse...
