As a psychiatrist, I often speak with troubled people who are considering suicide as a way out of their emotional distress. I find these conversations deeply challenging because our language allows us to talk about self-annihilation in the same 'logical' way we might talk about any other action. I am caught between my professional need to evaluate someone's suicide risk and my human need to understand a distressed person. Prediction relates to statistical facts, to identifying scientifically established risk factors, whereas understanding depends upon society's value systems. In North American society, the possibility that suicide could be considered a rational response to life's problems is controversial. Can suicide be considered rational? If so, how might we decide which motives count as reasonable and which an expression of disturbed thinking, a form of temporary insanity? Can we apply society's definitions of rationality to individual motives for suicide? In a daring methodological move, John Weaver, professor of history at McMas-ter University, says we must.
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