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Recently there was a thread on suicide and therapist's responsibility, a thread that was locked because the poster may have had a hidden agenda....
Regardless, that got me thinking about what it means to kill oneself and what it means to be responsible for that.
Surely we have all come across others who do everything BUT kill themselves, whether consciously or unconsciously. There are many examples and I rather not mention particulars but suffice to say that anything, from addictions to overeating to simply not taking of yourself, can shorten life in the long run and seriously influence the quality of life, specially from a human potential movement POV.
"We who were living are now dying
With a little patience" (T.S. Eliot)
Secondly, what does it mean to be responsible for that person? Do we not own our own lives? Should we not have the choice to end it? Of course we can and many do, but it is only when the government and "professionals" get involved that such freedom is taken away, and in fact, it is only then that I sometimes wonder if such a person did truly want to end her life or was hoping to find the caring and compassion that she hoped existed but had not found.
"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
(Williams)
Can we not conceive of circumstances so dire that would allow a person, a rational one, to choose death over life? Such circumstances, of course, are extremely rare though at times, in the heat of the moment, as many as half of us perhaps, have seriously thought about suicide at some point in our lives. Specially therapists. So I think it's important to talk about these things. It's hard to save lives, or less heroically and more accurately, to encourage pained others to go on living, to go on living fully and enjoying the richness of life, when the option, when the choice, when the freedom to end life is feared and guarded against, when it casts an oppressive shadow that can suffocate the freedom and will to live.
Sorry to wax poetic, but we all have needs.
Regardless, that got me thinking about what it means to kill oneself and what it means to be responsible for that.
Surely we have all come across others who do everything BUT kill themselves, whether consciously or unconsciously. There are many examples and I rather not mention particulars but suffice to say that anything, from addictions to overeating to simply not taking of yourself, can shorten life in the long run and seriously influence the quality of life, specially from a human potential movement POV.
"We who were living are now dying
With a little patience" (T.S. Eliot)
Secondly, what does it mean to be responsible for that person? Do we not own our own lives? Should we not have the choice to end it? Of course we can and many do, but it is only when the government and "professionals" get involved that such freedom is taken away, and in fact, it is only then that I sometimes wonder if such a person did truly want to end her life or was hoping to find the caring and compassion that she hoped existed but had not found.
"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
(Williams)
Can we not conceive of circumstances so dire that would allow a person, a rational one, to choose death over life? Such circumstances, of course, are extremely rare though at times, in the heat of the moment, as many as half of us perhaps, have seriously thought about suicide at some point in our lives. Specially therapists. So I think it's important to talk about these things. It's hard to save lives, or less heroically and more accurately, to encourage pained others to go on living, to go on living fully and enjoying the richness of life, when the option, when the choice, when the freedom to end life is feared and guarded against, when it casts an oppressive shadow that can suffocate the freedom and will to live.
Sorry to wax poetic, but we all have needs.
