General Article Making sense of suicide

Topic Selected: Self-harm and Suicide
This article is 9 years old. Click here to view the latest articles for this topic.

Suicide is a highly emotive subject, still often treated as taboo in most cultures. This means that even though it is fairly common, of all the forms of depressed thinking, suicidal thinking is least likely to be aired, discussed and critically evaluated.

Deadly tunnel vision

Isolation and painful despair in conjunction with depressed thinking habits make for a very risky combination. Suicidal thinking often arises out of hopelessness about being able to overcome difficult life problems. When someone is desperate for relief from suffering, yet stuck in tunnel vision at the bottom of the depression habit spiral, they are less able to apply problem-solving skills and are vulnerable to the deadly over-simplification of suicidal thinking. The taboo over discussing suicide also means that thinking about suicide can leave someone feeling very isolated and alone.

So how do we make sense of suicide?

Several different paths of thought can lead in the direction of suicide. All are distort...

Would you like to see the rest of this article and all the other benefits that Issues Online can provide with?

Sign up now for an immediate no obligation FREE TRIAL and view the entire collection