PSYC 231 Lecture 9: PSYC 231 Lecture 9
25 Jan 2019
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Document Summary
Over 3,500 canadians die by suicide each year. Over 35000 americans die by suicide each year. Worldwide, over 1 million die by suicide each year. Suicide is among the leading 12 causes of death. Among young adults, suicide is among the leading 3 causes of death. More people die of suicide than military conflict. Historically and empirically, the pre-eminent psychological predictor of suicide have been: depression, hopelessness. All other psychological factors are only suicide-relevant through psychache. Psychache is a free-floating, non-situation-specific, chronic hurt, anguish, despair or, more generally, internal perturbation, that causes individuals to seek permanent escape from it. Shneidman asserted that, suicide is caused by psychache and that all other psychological factors, such as depression, are only important for suicide as they relate to psychache. Death by suicide is not seen as a product of a psychiatric disorder but as an outcome that results from the unbearable psychological pain associated with thwarted psychological needs.
