Parents Under Pressure: The Social Dynamics Surrounding Blame for Suicide Deaths in a Privileged Community

• In Event: 104 - Section on Sociology of Mental Health Paper Session. New Dimensions of Difference: Underexplored Variation in Mental Health

Abstract

Drawing from in-depth interviews and focus groups (N=99), we examine the social and cultural forces behind adolescent suicide in a community that has an excessive number of adolescent suicide deaths, including several suicide clusters. Specifically, we focus on the pervasive culture of “parent-blame” that impacts adults’ abilities to cope with children’s mental health problems. We show that parent-blame is a social force that is both a product of and a sanction that perpetuates the broader community culture of perfection and high achievement. Youth are adversely affected by this culture, particularly because it suppresses the help-seeking behaviors of both youth and parents and reifies mental health stigma in the community. Ultimately, we show how this privileged community has become a relatively toxic environment that facilitates the spread and clustering of suicides. We discuss the implications of our study for the sociology of suicide and Durkheimian sociology.

Authors

• Anna S. Mueller, University of Memphis

• Seth Abrutyn, University of Memphis