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‘It is not a recent phenomenon, it has always been there’

By Editor
25 March 2017   |   3:37 am
Suicide usually has its history or what you may call etiology. It doesn’t happen just like that, but when it happens like that, it becomes a high point of a process that has began a long time ago.

Dr. Jaiyeoba Folusho Ilesanmi

Dr. Jaiyeoba Folusho Ilesanmi, psychologist and a senior lecturer in the Department of Industrial Relations and Personnel Management, Lagos State University, Lagos, spoke to DANIEL ANAZIA on the rising cases of suicide
 
What do you make of the suicide trend in Nigeria recently?
Suicide usually has its history or what you may call etiology. It doesn’t happen just like that, but when it happens like that, it becomes a high point of a process that has began a long time ago.

There are theoretical linkages. Some people have wondered if it is hereditary, but the most scientifically-proven and supported cause is the problem of living. When you have situations of hopelessness or frustration that looks as if there is no way out and the alternative is to take your life.

Perhaps we can also look at the traditional cause of it. In Yoruba land back in the days, there was always this belief that someone who has been exposed to shame would always do the needful.

So, these are some the areas where suicide is coming from. It is not a recent phenomenon; it has always been there and the statistics vary from country to country. We can also look at demography of suicides. Among which age group are suicides common? It is usually common among youths between the ages 21 and 35 and it also differs between male and female.

The tendency to commit suicide is high among females at a particular age group, especially when they are teenagers. I will like to say that the social media has now made the cases of suicide more popular, which tends to suggest that it didn’t happen in the past. But it is because more people have access to news. There is more access to information of such incidence in society.

Talking about why people would commit suicide, people commit suicide when they have debilitating problem(s) that seem unresolvable and when support system, such as social, religious and family are weak.

Also, the data varies. We likely have more suicide occurring in the cities than in the rural areas. This is because of the higher degree of individualism that you find in the city centres.

The strongest linkage for suicide is depression, which according to Sigmund Freud, makes most of our behaviours to be motivated by unconscious motives and these motives are usually buried in the unconscious mind.

There are usually give-away signs. Sometimes, the people involved talk about it at one point or the other before they carry it out. The challenge is how much of this signals can society pick.

I was reading about the recent incident on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos and I understand that was not the first time the young man had attempted suicide. It was reported that his family had managed him, perhaps that why they attached a driver to him. But this time, he was able to beat them to the defence mechanism they had put in place to check him.

How can someone who is depressed be easily detected?
My knowledge/expertise in this area maybe peripheral, perhaps a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist would be in best position to put up this. However, there are diagnostic procedures to detect suicide. This can take the form of battery of test or getting individuals to respond to spot on questions related to such deep emotional problems. One way or the other they will mention it.
 
We can also look at certain immediate socio-economic factors that trigger depression, which leads to suicide. These include loss of job, which makes people have suicidal thoughts, because they feel they can’t continue to live the way they were living.

Also, teenagers who get pregnant could be driven towards suicide when they feel they have nobody to confide in. Sometimes churches are unable to provide the much-needed help because what we mostly have in churches these days are amateurs being brought forward to solve a deep-seated problem and they would probably raise prayer points, which wouldn’t touch on the issue.

Of course, religion can provide some succour that will not deal with the root of the problem. For example, somebody lost his job and you are telling the person to have faith in God, whereby there is no food for his family and no source of income. There is an assurance that there will be news of the person committing suicide. So, the diagnostic procedures range from society paying attention.

What are the major factors that lead to depression?
It could be the problem of living- economic, psychological-inability to bear children as a married woman, especially when you feel everybody around you is moving forward, but you are not.

How can employers help their employees fight depression?
We cannot localise depression in the economy, because there are so many areas of life where people can get depressed.It is good to be aware that money can solve issues, but not all kind of issues that lead to depression.

Most companies today do not have a career or counseling unit that deals with issues that are emotional in nature. Organisations can go beyond looking at productivity to find out about emotional problems that affect their workers.

There should be a unit manned by trained psychologists, because 50 per cent of problems solved do not mean such persons cannot go down to a level of being depressed and consequently commit suicide.

 
 
 

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