An interesting talk from an earlier email

If you would like to attend please email me before the day:  Dave Harper (d.harper@uel.ac.uk). 

Directions at:  http://www.uel.ac.uk/campuses/stratford.htm

Dave

 

School of Psychology, University of East London

Dr David Webb:  Thinking (differently) about suicide

Thursday 10 June  5.00-6.30pm

Lecture theatre AE 1.01 (first floor of the Arthur Edwards building), University of East London, Stratford campus.

Suicide is best understood as a crisis of the self, rather than the prevailing view that it is the consequence of some notional mental illness.  As the ‘sui’ in suicide, the self is both the victim and perpetrator of any suicidal act and should be the central concept for the study of suicide.  Mainstream suicidology, however, rarely discusses the self and our sense of self, nor does it give much attention to what suicidal feelings mean to those who live them.  It also neglects spiritual needs and values, and spiritual ways of knowing the self, that are often at the heart of the suicidal crisis. Thinking differently about suicide also requires a shift to engaging with suicidal feelings as legitimate, meaningful and significant – indeed sacred – that deserve to be respected and honoured rather than judged and pathologised.