Suicide: rational or irrational?

Abstract

Recently, the Australian & New .Zealand Journal of Psychiatry [l] published a piece by my friend and colleague, Professor Riaz Hassan to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Emile Durkheim's Le Suicide [2]. Professor Hassan's commemoration generously acknowledged points of view about suicide which were not derived from Durkheim, but he was very positive about Durkheim's influence on modern suicidology. I disagree. I think Durkheim has led us astray. Since Le Suicide has had such a profound effect on the way we now construct our understanding of suicide, I would like to take this opportunity to examine his contribution to suicidology.