Suicidology prevents the cultivation of suicide

Abstract

Suicide is a socio-cultural phenomenon. Reports about suicide from different cultures and eras support the opinion that suicide can be a cultivated and normatively recognized act. International educated and scientific use of the term suicide produces, conveys and suggests a narrowing of reflection. A medical deficit viewpoint has been established, and corresponding theories constructed and ‘verified’ to justify the paternalistic interaction with suicidal people. The suicidal person is discriminated and isolated on multiple levels in the suicide development process. Psychological autopsy studies are driven by deficit- and illness-based approaches and are designed and conducted on a low methodological level. When suicidal actions are recognized as normal actions, or even interpreted as morally sound, medical, political, religious and other guardians of morality and the ruling order oppose such understanding and demand sovereignty of interpretation. The conflicts in the suicide field result from diverging values and interests, whereby open, controversial and empirically-based public discussions are generally avoided. There is a lack of reference in psychiatric and suicidology texts to the fact that ‘free will’, ‘free choice’ or ‘free mind’ in modern society are not restricted primarily by mental illness, but by socio-economic disadvantage and economic and political decisions that lead, among other things, to mental disorders. Cultivation of suicide is not in contradiction with prevention of suicide.