tfilm (02/16/83)
RE: From 'On the Nature of Suicide'
In his prologue to 'On the Nature of Suicide', Schneidman (1)
quotes Weisemann and Hackett (2)
"What makes one death appropriate and another death tragic?.....
Part of an answer to this is to be found in the aversion among
doctors to confront themselves with tha fact of their own death and
to wonder if death can ever be appropriate for them. Despair wears
many masks; a hard shell of materialism may cover a tenderness that
shuns exposure. The dedication to forestall death is an indication
that the medical profession believes that death is never
appropriate."
I have often wondered why it is that the medical profession goes to
such extent to preserve 'life' in a body which should have 'died'
long ago. It appears that W & H have presented a somewhat obverse
possibility, that is, 'the medical profession believes that *death*
is not appropriate' (my emphasis). What does the medical
profession believe is appropriate? What is their belief based
upon? They (W & H) go on to discuss the four principal
requirements af an appropriate death, and I suppose, may somewhere
discuss at length how the medical profession
Any thoughts?
1. E. S. Schneidman (Ph.D., chief, Center for Studies of Suicide
Prevention, National Institute of Mental Health; clinical professor
of psychiatry (suicidology), George Washington University School of
Medicine; lecturer in psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine)
2. Weismann and Hackett, "Predilection to Death: Death and Dying as
a Psychiatric Problem", Psychosomatic Medicine, 23, 1961, 232-256.
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