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Halbwachs (Les causes du suicide, F. Alcan, Paris, 1930) distinguishes between suicide and self-sacrificial death (Opfertod) in contrast to Durckheim, who classifies the latter under the heading of suicide, and calls it 'altruistic suicide'. Both approach the problem of suicide from a sociological angle. The author's view is that 'Suicide is either a direct or indirect revolt of the ego (weakening of the emotional links to super-ego—father—society)
or an attempt to re-establish loosened libidinal fixations, or, finally, self-punishment and restoration (compensation), rebirth. On the other hand, self-sacrifice (Opfertod) consists of total or partial annihilation of the ego through identification with a superior punishing morality (super-ego—father—society). Suicide can be caused by aggressive, revengeful, egoistic motives, or by masochism or altruism. Self-sacrifice is always an expression of oblational (giving) tendencies. … In each case the ego is sacrificed to the revengefulness of the id, to the wrath of the super-ego. The id plays a more or less important part in which it shows itself sometimes sadistic and violent, sometimes masochistic (death instinct). The super-ego appears in most cases independent and demanding'.
As to the relation to the sociological theory B. says: 'What D. and H. call society and social coercion are in our terms libidinal links, giving tendencies which are located in the super-ego or in the unconscious of all men. They are meta-personal, irrational, alogical forces which the conscious ego cannot resist'.