ABSTRACT:Psychiatr Neurol Med Psychol (Leipz). 1989 Apr;41(4):218-23.
[Parent, mother or father loss in childhood and suicidal behavior in adulthood]
Lange E, Garten C.
Klinik und Poliklinik fur Psychiatrie und Neurologie der Medizinischen Akademie Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden.
Redefining the Self by Jessica Torrant
ABSTRACT: Information respecting loss of one or both parents in childhood was elicited at certain fixed intervals among 170 suicides and 200 each of attempted suicide cases, and hospitalised neurological and ophthalomological patients. It was discovered that among the cases of suicide and attempted suicide, cases where one or both parents were lost in childhood were 2 1/2 to 4 times more frequent than in the control groups. Especially notable is the high frequency of cases where the father was the lost parent.
While doing some research on father-loss, I came across the above abstract from a research project into the affect of parental loss and the frequency of suicide.
Parental loss is painfully powerful. A German study revealed that there is a higher suicidal rate among children who have lost a parent. There is an even higher frequency of suicides when the father was the lost parent. This should be another wake-up call on the importance of fatherhood.
With this in mind, I began thinking about the impact of FatherGod loss on a culture. Nietzsche is credited for the famous, "God is dead" quote. This philosophical shock sent a tidal wave into the culture. The following is the passage from which the quote comes with a brief introduction.
Friedrich Nietzsche is notable for having declared that God is dead and for having written several of his works in the presumption that man must find a new mode of being given the demise of God. Perhaps the most interesting quote on this theme appears in his The Gay Science (aka Joyous Wisdom). A fairly full version of this key quote is set out immediately below:
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still traveling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."
It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?"
What would be some parallels between father-loss and Father-God loss?
4 comments:
Nietzsche is dead, actually.
When a child loses a father, one of the consequences is a sense of purpose. This often is characterized by vocational difficulties. When a father guides and affirms his children according to their gifts and passions, they are most often successful in their endeavors.
This is but one example, but I believe that there are some commonalities to a culture losing their belief in God, or even caring if He exists. The culture loses their sense of who they are and why thy are on the earth. The lack of an acknowleded direction and guidance, creates an anything goes society.
A recent study in the NYT demonstrating what you're talking about. It was comparing cultures that did have traditional marriage versus those which don't. It was fascinating. When people get married and stay married, their arts and business thrive. In cultures of high divorce rates and serial coupling, people are so consumed with finding mates that they can't focus on propagating the culture, artistically, commercially, etc.
Really interesting.
Yes, very interesting. There was a study out several years ago about the affect of marriage on men that had some similar conclusions. I think it may have come from George Gilder.
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