Further, psychoanalysis suggests that suicide may be an introjection of

punishing at titudes. An overbearing superego may make massive

demands that cannot be met and then exact suicide as both punishment
and escape (Fenichel 1945, W. Roalfe 1928, Bergler 1946). In fact, the
aggression in suicide, which seems so clearly intrapunitive, may have
extrapunitive elements when it is meant, as it so often is, to elicit sorrow
and guilt in others (Mowrer 1942). Dollard, Doob, et al. (1939) have
formulated the idea that frustration tends to lead to aggression. What the
suicide perceives to be a frustration of love and attention can lead him
through a tortuous logic to suicide, an aggression against the self (Bergler
1946). The unconscious logic of the suicide may be even more convoluted.
Jackson (1957) suggests that the concepts of rebirth and restitution are
also important motivations in suicide. The child, for example, may be put
to bed by the "bad" mother and, through sleep, fantasize a reunion with the
"good" mother in the morning. Since sleep and death are unconsciously
equated, the suicide may also fantasy a waking reunion with the "good"
mother after his "sleep." Jackson suggests this is another core element in
the motivation of suicide. By a form of prelogical thinking the suicide
believes not only that he can reunite with the mother of an earlier age but
also that by committing sui cide to punish someone, he will be able to
witness the remorse of his tormentor and benefit from the belated love
and attention that remorse may elicit. At the very least, he is sure that he will
be aware of the guilt his "tormentor" will feel for "driving him to his death."
Further, as Menninger (1938) notes, there is a whole spectrum of activities
(risk taking, heavy drinking) not usually associated with suicide as such but
that has essentially the same kinds of dynamics. Alco holism for example,
exists in individuals with strong dependency needs. [Hendin (1963) gives a
summary of these psychodynamics though weighting them in a slightly
different fashion.]
If the continuum of suicide behavior includes more than simply taking one's
life, then variations along this continuum will probably typify different cultures.
Some only mildly suicidal individuals will find other defensive maneuvers or
manipulative techniques just as useful because in light of the primary process
thinking that motivates such behavior there is an equal logic to suicide or to
psychosomatic illness.
Elsewhere we (DeVos and Hippler 1969) have suggested that totemism,
initiation rites, and taboos, as well as religious behavior, should be
perceived as motivated by the same general dynamics and as representing
different aspects of expressive affective life. In a like manner, suicide,
manipulative behavior, and psychosomatic problems all must be perceived
as varieties of each other. That common sense suggests to us that suicide
is dramatically different from other activities due to its irreversible
consequences does not mean that it must have different kinds of
psychodynamic motivation than other behavior. Clearly, social structural
factors cannot account for such thinking processes, which is my basic
argument with Durkheim. They can, however, be instrumental in reeliciting
such magical thinking in adult life, and they do so differently from culture to
culture.
Since primary process thinking is universal, all societies institutionalize
some aspects of it. Nonetheless, people in some societies are more explicit
about using magical thinking processes in explaining their behavior. Such
openly expressed notions are helpful in guiding our ideas about the meaning of
suicide. Although few investigators until recently have dealt with suicide
psychologically, some investigators have included material on folk notions
about suicide, which is of great use in pointing out the psychodynamic
ontogenesis of suicide. Even such relatively unsystematic information tends
to be supportive of the approach to suicide studies we are suggesting.
For example, Southall (1960), in at tempting to compare homicide and
suicide rates among the Alur of Uganda in a partial test of Durkheim's
hypothesis of the complementary distribution of suicide and murder, notes
that suicide, which is rarer than murder, is felt locally to result from remorse
over violence. The Alur believe that no death is natural and that sorcery is
the chief cause of death. Since the Alur are organized into patrilineages
having exogamous marriage, there exists a great potential for hostility
between lineages. Southall argues that hostility must be channeled outward
because of the need for solidarity of the lineage group, and he sees this as
the basic motive for suicide, because violence against anyone in the in-
group violates the strongest taboos of the group. Thus we may note some
cultural recognition at least of the aggressive components of suicide.
Wilson (1960), on the other hand, in the same volume suggests that among
the Jolue of Kenya a true Samsonic suicide exists. Vengeance is
unquestionably believed to be possible through the ghosts of the dead.
Male suicide usually follows loss of status through poverty or through the
disrespect of the son. Here, then, we might surmise that suicide, in part at
least, is directed at the sometimes disrespectful son, but the extent of this
pattern and a strong sibling rivalry (the father seeing the son as a
reelicitation of the younger brother) that we might conjecture to be part of it
is only hinted at and not made clear.

LaFontaine (1960) in discussing the Gisu also attempts to test the Henry-
Short theory (1954) of suicide. Henry and Short suggest, among other
things, that high-status people are suicide prone because the freedom to
act independently, which they feel characterizes higher-status people,
conditions individuals to set their own rules and often to be suicidally
intrapunitive if they fail to meet these self-set standards. In detailing the
inadequacy of this status based formulation

LaFontaine notes that female suicide is high among the Gisu, yet females
are not of particularly high status. Also he suggests that they are not
internally restrained but subject almost entirely to external restraints. To
explain this situation LaFontaine has recourse to a Wynne-Ed wards (1962,
1965), Washburn (1965) type of theory. He suggests that aggression in
creases are due to increases in population and decrease in war. While that
may be in part true, it does not seem to be an adequate explanation of
female suicide.
L. and M. Fallers (1960) find weakness in Durkheim's theory of the
complementarity of murder and suicide. In looking at some of the
epidemiological rates for suicide in the world they note that the vast
differences (Japan, 20.5 suicides per 100,000 population, and Chile, 4.4)
are unexplained. When compared with the murder rates in these various
countries there appear to be no correlations at all. Additionally, the Fallers
point out that many countries have a vested interest in lying about the rates
(e.g., Catholic countries), which is in line with Stengel's observations (1964)
on the general unreliability of epidemiological information on suicide.
Others have attempted to use statistical approachs as well to verify a
substantially social structural argument. Khalil (1962), for example,
suggests that a feeling of "psychological isolation" is the basis for suicidal
tendencies in Egypt. While the overall Moslem suicide rate is 2 per 100,000
and the Christian rate is 1.5, the unmarried have a rate of 10.8. This
skyrockets to 21.5 for the divorced and 36.6 for the highly educated. The
implication is that individuals in the lat ter categories are so "distantiated"
("psychologically isolated") from their society that they have a high rate of
anomic suicide. Why divorce in a Moslem society should be so culturally
shocking is never made clear. On the other hand, Verrier (1943), in
discussing suicide rates among the Marias of India, notes that both their
suicide and mur der rates are higher than for the rest of India, though
identical folk reasons are given by these "tribal" people and by urban,
educated Hindus. Here the "psychological isolation" Khalil postulates
would be found among rural un acculturated peoples.
While this sample does not exhaust the social structural and
epidemiological approaches, the pattern of these investigations and their
inadequacy is clear. Such studies tend to be long on facts and short on
theories with which to explain them. Most of these works lean heavily on
social structure as an explanatory device but with a "commonsense"
psychology. We have suggested that social structural factors are important
in a somewhat different sense than used in most of these studies. That is,
social structures may both reflect personality patterns and structure
interpersonal situations to elicit culturally suitable emotional expressions.
This hypothesis would suggest that "suitable" actions will be determined by
the interaction of the personality of the individual involved and the framework of
the accept able modes of possible behavior. The primary process thinking, that
is, death equals reunion and the opportunity for revenge and secondary gain of
love, which we have noted characterizes suicides, is then channeled through
the emotional logic of the individual, formed through the vicissitudes of his own
instinctual strivings and ego defenses, which have been developed in his
socialization. The person then acts, partially as a result of what he assumes
through his enculturation to be the proper way to act and in part as a result of
certain panhuman attitudes and feelings. The whole sequence can be
triggered by some temporary or immediate situation that relicts certain
unconscious attitudes and the entire superstructure of emotional logic and
behavioral expectations appended to these primary process thoughts and
their defenses. There have been several studies that have attempted to
show just this developmental process in dis cussing suicide, and these
studies shed much light on the meaning of suicide crosscultually.
Devereux (1961), for example, in discussing Mohave suicide, says that on
the conscious level, the Mohave abhor suicide. However, behaviorally,
there is ample evidence of self-destruction among them. Their mythology
relates that all deaths are a result of the death of their god Matavilya, who
through suicide, an act of the will, became the prototype for all deaths,
which are also seen as acts of the will. There is also among the Mohave a
cultural tradition of vicarious suicide, that is, warriors deliberately straying
into enemy territory or individuals putting themselves at the disposal of
witches. Devereux suggests that Mohave mythology-cosmology seems to
be related to the Mohave need to contend with anxieties and tensions
originally stemming from their fear of witchcraft but that now seem to be
exacerbatedly the pressures of acculturation. Incest is dreaded, for example,
yet Mohave incest taboos are so extensive it is almost impossible to find
someone classificatorally avail able for mating. Thus, nearly all sexual
expression is attended by anxiety.
The Mohave believe that even infants can commit suicide. Such a belief
offers a less anxiety-provoking explanation for the high Mohave infant
mortality rate. On still and other level, Devereux notes that the Mohave
often openly state a desire for reunion through death with dead wives. He
finds brooding resentment, identification with a previous suicide, and
masochistic revenge all-important aspects of suicide among the Mo have. This
pattern is strongly supportive of our hypothesis, but unfortunately Devereux
did not concern himself with the early socialization patterns that have
helped to develop these attitudes.
In his discussion of the Kaska, Honig Mann (1949) gives a clear description
of the interaction between internal and external forces-between child
socialization of aggression and sexuality and the social structure-that
results in an adult personality prone to suicide. After its birth the Kaska child
is nursed generously, if not warmly, and is always surrounded by adults. It
is, however, swaddled and not permitted the freedom to develop its motor
skills and exploratory urges. In fact, the Kaska child is discouraged even
from walking or crawling. All its physical needs are taken care of by the
adults around it. There is no pressure for weaning or toilet training. As soon
as the next child is born, however, it is completely shunted aside, and if it is
a boy, he must turn to his father and adolescent males for any warmth and
attention.
The child, trained against exhibiting aggression, grows up in a world where
self-reliance and helplessness are seen as polar at tributes. His early good
care has enabled him to develop good executive functions of the ego, but
he is passive because no achievement demands have ever been made on
him. In adult life he feels he must be self-reliant as a defense against
feeling lonely and afraid. He has never developed any real ability to feel
reciprocated and reciprocating love (his love for his mother not being
reciprocated), so he avoids love relations for fear of rejection. As an adult,
he performs the sex act in a mechanical fashion and often fantasizes the
act as aggression against a woman. Promiscuity is a well developed
defense against the possibility of true personal emotional attachments. The
Kaska fear personal relations in general due to their intense concern with
witchcraft and their belief that it is generated by close friends and especially
within the family (Honigmann 1947). These pressures lead to what
Honigmann describes as an "atomistic" social order.
In this setting there is a pattern of frequent male suicide attempts. Such
attempts are usually made in the presence of other men, and the suicidal
intention is most often thwarted. Everyone then shows consideration for
and attention to the would-be suicide. Honigmann implies this shows the
strong need for love and attention in this cold, isolating society. To get the
attention he needs, the Kaska individual acts aggressively; since
aggression is tabooed, he feels the guilt that in turn leads to a suicidal urge.
The announcement of intent to commit suicide then brings attention from
men, whom he has learned to trust more than women. The Kaska male
gets a powerful payoff in terms of a secondary reward of love.
Wallace (1951) finds the same sort of pattern among the Iroquois.
Characterizing them as oral character types, he notes that they have strong
dependency wishes, which are reelicited in the event of the collapse of their
independency mask. The stoicism ethos, the intense concern with food,
and the anger at anyone who would steal food (other oral traits) are also
noted by earlier writers such as Murdock (1934) and Morgan (1901).
Beauchamp (1900) confirms this by noting that Iroquois women frequently
take poison (which may imply the not unfamiliar unconscious equation:
poison equals rejecting mother) to make their husbands receive the full
social disapproval as a result of their deaths. This social reproach was
heavy indeed and included demands for restitutive acts, which, we assume,
have no value to the dead except in terms of the pre suicide's magical
thinking. In those terms, however, the restitution may well be conceived of
as the presentation of love and attention that was desired. Fenton also
noted this kind of behavior among the Iroquois (1941).
In discussing the Northeast Woodlands Indian character in general, Hallowell
(1946) also notes that the pattern of stoic indifference to pain is rife with anxiety
and inhibited aggressive impulses, which spill out through drinking behavior
and are directed especially against close relatives. Such assaults often result
in the suicide of the assaulter, which seems to indicate a serving of the
secondary functions that Honigmann notes, though with a fantasized rather
than real payoff.
Boyer in a series of articles (1964a, 1964b, 1964c) also discusses inward-
turned aggression among the Mescalero Apaches, which takes the form of
suicidal drinking. That such a mode of suicidal behavior (Menninger 1938
notes it as such) might be related to latent homosexuality seems clear from
his discussion of drinking patterns among them ( 1964a). Apache child
rearing as he describes it is extremely non-nurturing and even brutal.
Ambivalent attitudes about pregnancy on the part of the mother give way to
a narcissistic adoration of the child immediately after its birth and in turn to
ab solute indifference and abandonment after the birth of the next child.
(Apache parents often give their older children away or abandon them and
appear to forget that they have ever had them.) The oral regression and
hence suicidal urges this creates must be of high order. When the child is
kept and ignored, the hostility it feels toward the younger child is shunted
aside by parental injunctions not to harm the infant but to go out and torture
some small animals instead. Thus the Apache child learns at least in part to
direct some of his suicidal urges outward as aggression against the
helpless.
Additionally, the child is exposed to repetitive sexual trauma by watching his
parents in sexual intercourse (Apache belief is that children do not
understand nor can they be taught anything until they are four or five years
of age). The child, of course, interprets this activity in terms of the
psychosexual stage in which he is at the time. Sex therefore is commonly
perceived to be sadistic aggression (which considering Apache attitudes
toward sex is not entirely devoid of truth). The continuing absent-father
pattern (the mother is the main disciplinarian and fathers are often physically
and almost al ways psychologically distant) further erodes the possibility of
proper sex role identification for the boys, though the situation is somewhat
better for girls.
About the only outlet for aggressive feelings that is permitted is through
drinking and its attendant self-destructiveness. While they are drinking,
Apaches can engage in overt homosexual and heterosexual activity of the
most blatant sort at any time and place and involve themselves in brutal
and often fatal fights, activities that are inconceivable to the Apache when
sober.
The Japanese pattern, as explained by George DeVos ( 1962, 1965) and
DeVos and Wagatsuma (1959), also shows the importance of dependency
and aggression feelings in the etiology of suicide. In Japan an unusually
high performance standard is introjected, and aggression is turned inward
through the actions of the "self-sacrificing" mother syndrome, which in
Japan functions as a weapon to force high level of achievement as
compensation for mother's pain. On the other hand, young men and women
(especially students), may react with suicide to what they perceive as
extreme and unreasonable achievement demands. DeVos suggests that
there is little development of firm ego boundaries in Japanese families as a
result of the continuing and intense libidinous relationship with the mother
and some difficulty in dedifferentiation as a result. This, of course, would
strongly support unconscious desires for fusion as the other dominant
aspect of Japanese suicide.
The patterns of dependency and aggressive revenge also stand out in the
Eskimo suicide pattern, which is with the Japanese among the highest rates
anywhere. Butler (1966) notes that the Eskimo suicide rate in Canada is
much higher than the rate for the rest of the Canadian population (41.7 per
100,000 to 12.2) and that most suicides are male. Leighton and Hughes
(1955) in discussing Eskimo suicide note that aggression that is clearly
implied in it. Eskimos often request the help of their wives, sons, and other
relatives and close friends in commit ting suicide. In some cases the
resultant act could only be described as sought out selfmurder. Since
many Eskimo suicides are ex pressly and openly for the purpose of making
someone feel guilty, there also exists an institutionalized procedure for
ridding the survivors of their guilt in connection with the death. To free
themselves from their aggressive attitudes toward the man they have
helped kill, those who assist in a suicide must ritually wash themselves.
The fusion aspects of Eskimo suicide seem relatively clear. The Eskimo
child-rearing situation is uniformly undemanding, supportive, and nurturant.
No part of adult life could conceivably be nearly so pleasant. On the other
hand, Eskimo socialization of aggression is severe, as aggression is seen
as the one unpardonable sin. Yet Eskimo murder rates were presumably
very high in the past. The acting-out pattern established by the immediate-
gratification orientation of child rearing conflicts violently with the
internalized guilt about aggression. Punishment for one's own aggression
and fusion with the beloved mother appear to be the primary dynamics in
Eskimo suicide.
It is not only in North America that these patterns are found. While it is true
that North American suicide rates are impressionistically higher than
Oceanian ones and obviously quite higher than African ones, the rate
differences do not seem to reflect differences in basic motivation. The
motive of revenge especially seems to stand out clearly in many cases.
In Tikopia, for example, Firth (1961) in noting the culturally approved
method for suicide attempts, finds the old patterns completely acceptable
and the newer ones (such as hanging) to be completely taboo. When
someone puts out to sea in a small boat (usually a man) or begins to swim
out to sea (usually a woman), both of which are socially approved methods
for suicide at tempts, the entire community puts to sea in large canoes to
look for him or her. Barring quickly rising storms or chance mishaps, the
would-be suicides will be found and brought back. After they are brought
back, they are treated kindly and reintegrated into the society and helped
by the social group to solve the problems (usually caused by disagreement
with someone in the family) that drove them to this dramatic attempt.
What that treatment implies is that an interpersonal conflict that is well
known to at least a number of people is the "cause" of the suicide attempt.
Social pressure is then put on the "offender" to resolve the problem. Thus,
what might be considered else where as a pathological behavior is
institutionalized into an acceptable grievance procedure. On the other hand,
it is clear why hanging is so tabooed. The social healing mechanism is
disrupted, and the transgressor is unable to undo whatever he has done
that harmed the suicide. The suicide's unrelieved anger is clear to the
community, whereas if the would-be suicide dies in the sea attempts, it is
merely put to bad luck and not malice, and probably rightly so.
Fortune (1932) states that suicide in Dobu was in the past often used as a
technique for getting the lineage to revenge itself on the suicide's unfaithful
wife. Fortune notes that in that matrilineal and matrilocal society, not only
did the new husband come into a village of witches and sorcerers at his
marriage (all deaths were believed to result from sorcery), but his wife was
also more comfortable among her kinsmen and might be a dangerous witch
as well. In addition, she had an entire village full of old boy friends to
cuckold him with and an inclination in that direction. Since the family lived in
the wife's village one year and the next in the husband's, and since the
husband acted in the same way toward his wife when he had the chance,
marriages were far from stable.
Probably part of the genesis of the man woman hatred in this society, so
clearly ex acerbated and reflected by the social structure, may be found in
the rejecting child rearing pattern. There is in this society a postpartum sex
taboo on women; therefore women dislike pregnancy because it interferes
with their adulterous liaisons. It also prevents sexual intercourse with the
bus band. Consequently, breast feeding (coterminous with the postpartum
sex taboo) is cut short. A general distrust of women develops on the part of
men because of this early rejection pattern, and it is strengthened and
reinforced by cultural practice and social-structural conditions. The
emotional logic here appears to be, "I will punish the hated mother/wife for
her abandonment by my death, and through death rejoin her in a more
blissful earlier period."
Specifically conscious instrumental motives in suicide closely linked with
unconscious ones are seen among the Fang. Alexandre and Binet (1958)
reported that in this African group a woman may commit suicide to take
revenge on her husband. There the person deemed responsible for a
suicide is severely judged by public opinion (as we have seen is true for
many societies) and must pay for an expensive expiation sacrifice. Tessman
(1913) reports among the same group that young men are advised by their
older relatives to treat their sisters well. If a man's sister becomes angry at
him, she may commit suicide, thus both causing him the expense of an
expiation sacrifice and losing for him the bride price she might bring, per
haps dooming him to livelong bachelorhood through poverty. Middleton
(1953) also notes this pattern of a clear and conscious instrumental suicide
to bring the weight of public opinion down on someone among the
Northwest Bantu.
The pattern of aggressive suicide is re ported by Bolinder (1957) among the
Goajiro of Columbia. The ghosts of suicides are so much feared that the
tree and rope (hanging is the preferred method of suicide) used by a
suicide are burned, and the place of his death is avoided to prevent harm
coming to the casual visitor. Obviously this would not be necessary unless
the suicide was felt to have aggressive feelings that could be vented after
death. We are confirmed in this opinion by Bolinder's statement that the
ghost of a suicide can chase one in the form of a flame. This is the same
manner in which the Goajiro murder victim's ghost haunts his killer. The
relationship between the way a murder victim feels toward his killer and the
feeling that a suicide has for those he has commited suicide "against" is
clearly understood in this folk belief. The fact that an unusually large proportion
of the suicides are children in this society is explained by Guiterrez de Pineda
(1948) through her description of the child-rearing practices of these people.
She notes in passing that in the case of a child suicide the parent who is felt
to have "caused" the death must pay a compensation to the other. The
"cruel" mother here weans the child early and quickly through the use of a
bitter herb on her breast. Concerns with food and hunger, even though the
society has no food problem, are considerable, and aggression is displaced
from the mother onto the siblings over the supposed and real thefts of the
food. Food is also stolen from the home and secreted.
Child punishment is severe. Disciplinary practices commonly include
beating the chi dren with sticks, placing them in baskets high in trees and
shaking them until they are unconscious or nauseous, bitter reprimands,
and teasing and degrading comments. The mother is the chief socializing
agent, and there is a strong taboo on retaliatory aggression against the
mother, so children often run away from home to find other mothers. In the
face of this treatment, the male who does not commit suicide can be very
brutal to females when he reaches an age where he can control them.
Women are expected to be virgins at marriage, and if they are not, the best
they can expect is extreme verbal abuse and public humiliation and scorn
by their husbands. At worst they will suffer severe beatings, with which their
kinsmen will not interfere.
Thus, whether it is customary for a wife to use suicide against a husband or
a husband against a wife seems to depend on the manner in which status,
social sex role, and power are structured in a society, the degree of anxiety
elicited, and the manner in which it is resolved. This, in turn, has much to do
with the social structure and the techniques of child rearing and
socialization, especially in the areas of aggression, dependency, and sex
role. Whether one or another set of motives seem to predominate, the
magical thinking processes still appear as the dominant theme, even in the
presence of apparent instrumental behavior.
It seems clear that expressive behavior can easily be combined with
instrumental behavior in complex ways. An interesting example of the
culturally expressed inter changeability of reality-oriented instrumental
behavior and suicide is apparent in South India. Harper (1962) notes that in
this patrilineal, patrilocal society young women came into the living group of
their husband's family and at low status. If mal treated, they can expect no
sympathy from their own families. If they do not commit suicide or go on
hunger strikes (the latter being an obvious instrumental tactic), they may fall
victim to an unconsciously developed weapon of spirit possession. During
spirit possession the woman is never held responsible for her "affliction,"
and the spirit that possesses her usually demands costly sacrifices as the
price for his departure. Sometimes the girl must be sent home for a
prolonged stay. The entire process, of course, brings differential treatment
that the girl would not otherwise get. Some ten to twenty percent of all
married young women in this area have at one time or another "suffered"
from this "affliction."
Suicide behavior may also express unhappiness over activities that are
supposed to be culturally acceptable. In describing the Lepcha of Sikkim,
Gorer (1938) notes that there is a strong socialization against aggression. The
Lepcha have a classificatory marriage system in which older brothers are per
mitted sexual access to younger brothers' wives, as are older sisters to
younger sisters' husbands. He further states that the socialization against
aggression makes suicide, of which there is a great deal, a truly powerful
weapon against the individual who supposedly caused it. Child rearing is so
mild and permissive and children get what they ask for so easily that this
attitude carries over into adult life. That someone could be so hurt by
another's actions that he would commit suicide is considered so horrible
that individuals attempt to prove their innocence of various charges by
attempting suicide. This is, in fact, so common that serious suspicion is cast
on someone who does not use this technique to "clear" himself.
Morris (1938) makes it clearer just what particular aspects of Lepcha social
structure elicit suicide when he notes that the "free and easy" access to the
wife of a sibling is neither free nor easy nor so complacently taken by the
younger brother or sister. Anger at such acts is frequent, but where all
outward aggression is tabooed and where punishment falls heavily on the
"causer" of a suicide, suicide is a reasonable instrumental act, assuming
the kind of magical thinking we have discussed.
While it seems apparent from these studies, at least in an impressionistic
sense, that differences in the rates and reasons for suicides can be
attributed to some form of "social personality" related to child-rearing
practices, none of the above-mentioned studies actually makes the
correlations. A much more successful explicit attempt to delineate
differences in socialization practices and value systems as a partial
explanation for differential suicide rates has been attempted by Hendin
(1960, 1964) for Scandinavia. In comparing the differences in suicide rates
among the Scandinavian countries, Hendin finds that suicide rates are low
in Norway and high in Sweden and Denmark. The Danish mother, he
suggests, uses her "long suffering" to play on the guilt of the child and
more easily to control it. The Danish child is strongly socialized against
aggression, and Hendin suggests that the search for dependency
gratification that comes out of the child rearing in Denmark, where the
mother keeps the child dependent, is the cause both of the ease the sexes
feel toward each other and, at the same time, because these dependency
needs are rarely fulfilled, the cause of many divorces.
The father in Denmark is in the position of the eldest favored child. He
often finds the birth of an infant to his wife to be openly annoying. On his
part, a loss of sexual interest and potency may occur. Depression
symptoms may set in, and suicide in its classical form, often with the stated
wish of a desire to rejoin the mother, takes place. Not only are private
fantasies full of such illusions, but also so is Danish folklore.
Sweden has a high suicide rate with a somewhat different genesis. Swedish
women are more interested in men than in babies and the rigid expectations
of early performance and independence they elicit from their children may
actually mask an in difference toward them and an annoyance with them.
This maternal rejection develops an affective deadness on the part of the
adult and a preference for an almost schizoid detachment. Hendin calls the
result of this "performance suicide," and while it clearly has its roots in
desires for fusion with the mother, there might well be some aggression
against the rejecting person as well. Feelings of both love and hate against
the "good" and the "bad" mother (simple different aspects of the same
person) exist at the same time in children and in the fantasies of adults, as
Klein has noted (1955, 1957).
Although Norwegians often have t h e same kind of dependency problems
(and some Norwegian suicides are clearly due to this), Hendin notes that
they also have far better techniques of dealing with aggression. Instead of
allowing aggressive and angry feelings to become intrapunitive and
involved in reeliciting preoedipal anxieties and wishes, they are able to
verbalize and openly express aggression. While child-rearing techniques
stress as an end product an independent self-sufficient child, they are
sufficiently supportive to create an individual whose dreams stress themes
of good luck (unlike the Swedes, who have many dreams of competition)
and achievement through goodness of heart. The Norwegians do not have
"quickie" funerals, which are indicative of anxiety over separation, as do the
Swedes and Danes; they can express grief as easily as rage, and they do
not commonly use guilt or sympathy to gain attention or affection.
While Hendin's work is clearly a step in the right direction, it suffers from
problems common to all "national character" type investigations. As
Wallace has pointed out (1952), the assumptions behind "unimodal
personality" patterns are incorrect and inadequate. Clearly national
"behavior" patterns cannot be derived in so simple a fashion either.
However, we have been forced to assume just such models (of unimodal
personality) because the ethnographic record is rarely presented in terms of
intracultural as well as intercultural differences. An effective description of
differences in types of personali ties and their frequency and core of
similarities must include descriptions of differential techniques of
socialization and access to life chances as well as information about "ideal"
culture and social structure.
In concluding I might note that while I do not entirely agree with
Schneidman (1966) about the need for extensive reclassification of suicide
behavior, it seems clear that it does exist in a continuum with instrumental
as well as expressive behavior. Where other techniques besides suicide
are used to gain the ends a suicide fantasies for himself or where the
suicide attempt itself is actually an institutionalized procedure for drawing
attention to some ill, we clearly see the genesis of the instrumental aspects
of suicide behavior. What is obviously needed are developed models of the
operation and development of defense systems applicable to cross-cultural
research and systematic investigation of the varieties of modes of coping.
The implications, however, are far broader than this. Suicidal behavior
must be viewed not only in its instrumental as well as expressive aspects,
but expressive and instrumental behaviors must also be seen on a
continuum. Further, there is a complex interaction between social structure,
the socialization experience, and the development of defense systems; and
even the manner in which psychic defenses are mobilized in adults
depends on all three of those systems giving rise to what we loosely define
as values.
I propose that systematic evaluation of specific behaviors of all types
subjected to the same kinds of analysis may lead to explanations that
may have greater predictive value than the fragmentary approaches
unfortunately characterizing much research in culture and personality
today populations of animals.