One key consideration for me is to what extent we think people who would choose to commit suicide, or people who have lived with a long treatment-resistant depression, are likely to recover and live a worthwhile life (and to what extent suicidal individuals can predict their future well-being).
The academic literature seems very lacking here. I found a couple of recent papers:
Thanks! I share this concern to some extent. Anecdotally I’ve heard of a whole lot of stories of people who attempted or came near attempting to take their life and then are glad they didn’t later on. I think the opposite happens a lot too but doesn’t get shared as much because of the stigma around suicide. “Local suicidal man says he’d attempt again” just doesn’t make for a great news story.
This also rests on an assumption (that I haven’t decided that I agree with) that it’s worse for people to potentially miss out on a future possibility of a good life than it is for them to certainly suffer with whatever is so bad they think it makes life not worth living, if that makes sense. It feels somewhat paternalistic to me, but I can see the merits of it also.
One key consideration for me is to what extent we think people who would choose to commit suicide, or people who have lived with a long treatment-resistant depression, are likely to recover and live a worthwhile life (and to what extent suicidal individuals can predict their future well-being).
The academic literature seems very lacking here. I found a couple of recent papers:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005789421000228 (a 2021 review)
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10503&context=etd (a 2022 master’s thesis on the topic, studying a cohort of 8,000 US veterans within which 400 had attempted suicide). It seems pessimistic, at a glance.
Thanks! I share this concern to some extent. Anecdotally I’ve heard of a whole lot of stories of people who attempted or came near attempting to take their life and then are glad they didn’t later on. I think the opposite happens a lot too but doesn’t get shared as much because of the stigma around suicide. “Local suicidal man says he’d attempt again” just doesn’t make for a great news story.
This also rests on an assumption (that I haven’t decided that I agree with) that it’s worse for people to potentially miss out on a future possibility of a good life than it is for them to certainly suffer with whatever is so bad they think it makes life not worth living, if that makes sense. It feels somewhat paternalistic to me, but I can see the merits of it also.