Adolescents at risk: causes of youth suicide in New Zealand

Adolescence, Winter, 1997 by Wilhelmina J. Drummond

Kiell (1964) has provided accounts from famous people in history who toyed with suicide in adolescence. These included Napoleon Bonaparte, Gandhi, and Anthony Trollope. He conjectured that their actions resulted from a revival of the oedipal conflict, leading to anxiety and precipitating morbid feelings of depression. He claimed that it is common for psychoneurotic depression and suicidal fantasies and impulses to appear during adolescence. Indeed, adolescence is the period when people start thinking about their own mortality. This results in ambivalent feelings about the gloriousness of life and the comforting fantasy of death as a simple answer to the problems of the human condition.

Adolescence is the period in which the individual must establish a sense of identity, overcoming role diffusion and identity confusion (Erikson, 1950). The search for identity involves establishing a meaningful self-concept in which past, present, and future are brought together to form a unified whole. The adolescent who fails in this task will be susceptible to indulging in a self-destructive activity, including suicide (Baumeister, 1986).

In many Western countries, career identity is dominant. Adolescents who do not establish a work or academic career fail to gain the identity required by adult standards. Khan (1986) has stressed that historically in New Zealand, schools socialized the young for adult roles and work, which are central to self-concept.

The identity crisis is greater for young people during this period in history in which the stable family and community traditions have been eroded or lost. For many developing and advanced countries, the present is characterized by social change, and the future has become much less predictable (Muuss, 1990). Durkheim (1897/1951) noted that at each moment of its history, each society has a definite aptitude for suicide. Could it be that New Zealand, Australia, and other advanced nations are at a crossroad where the tremendous social, economic and political changes make it too difficult for the young to find their place in society?

Disley (1994) has recognized that there is a paucity of research into the area of suicide prevention. Antoniades' study (1988) of suicide during 1961-1988 showed that for adolescents 15-19, mainly males, the following were high-risk indicators: having been born overseas, having parents who separated, being a sickness beneficiary or inpatient, having relationship problems, and having psychiatric problems. Joyce's research has pinpointed current New Zealand factors: high rates of depression, alcohol use, and drug use; family dysfunction; sexual abuse; and repeated serious suicide attempts. Townsend (1993) has added antisocial behavior and unemployment to this list. Adding the international findings to those from New Zealand, the list becomes more extensive: psychiatric disorder; stressful life events (e.g., breakdown of an intimate relationship); family instability and dysfunction; sexual abuse and other physical neglect and abuse; problematic behavior (e.g., sexual promiscuity); exposure to suicidal behavior (e.g., portrayal of suicide in the media); and sexual orientation problems.