Swedish study, it found only 10.9 % later killed themselves. Paradoxically, the prospects for a happy life are often greater for those who attempted suicide were being stopped and helped, than for those with similar problems who never attempt in committing suicide. In the words of academic psychiatrist Dr. Erwin Stengel, "The suicidal attempt is a highly effective though hazardous way of influencing others and its effects are as a rule lasting. In short, suicidal people should be helped with their problems, not helped to die.Shouldn't we distinguish between those who are emotionally unbalanced and those who are making a rational, competent decision? This question may be answered by Psychologist Joseph Richman who has interviewed or treated over 800 suicidal persons and their families. He has been impressed that those who are suicidal are more like each other than different. All suicides, including the "rational” one, can be an avoidance of or substitute for dealing with basic life-and-death issues. The suicidal person and significant others usually do not know the reasons for the decision to commit suicide, but they tend to give themselves reasons. That is why rational suicide is more often rationalized, based upon reasons that are unknown, unconscious, and as part of social and family system dynamics. The proponents of rational suicide are often guilty of tunnel vision, defined as the absence of perceived alternatives to suicides. Many people support assisted suicide because they thought those patients who are terminally ill should have right to end their own lives rather than suffering from endless painfulness. However, contrary to the assumptions of many people in the public, a scientific study of people with terminal illness published in The American Journal of Psychiatry found that fewer than one in four expressed a wish to die, and all of those who did had clinically diagnosable depression.As Richman points out, Effe...
