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Spirituality, Religion, and Rational Suicide

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Rational Suicide in the Elderly

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Abstract

Because conversations about rational suicide touch on the deepest questions on what it means to be human, clinicians must attend to the ways that patients’ spiritual and religious commitments inform their approach to decisions at the end of life. The FICA Spiritual History Tool is a useful, open-ended guide for engaging patients in conversation about spirituality and religion. In addition, clinicians can benefit from understanding how specific religious traditions engage rational suicide. Christian communities and traditions, for example, generally (though not unanimously) oppose rational suicide not only because they perceive suicide as a form of killing, but also because they maintain that “autonomy” and “rationality” are modern constructions and that rational suicide devalues those who are vulnerable, addresses suffering by eliminating the sufferer, and diminishes the role of the community in bearing and sharing the burdens and vulnerability of those who suffer.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, 27708, USA

    Joshua Briscoe M.D.

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Duke Divinity School, 407 Chapel Drive, Box 90968, Durham, NC, 27708, USA

    Warren Kinghorn M.D., Th.D.

Authors
  1. Joshua Briscoe M.D.
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  2. Warren Kinghorn M.D., Th.D.
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Correspondence to Warren Kinghorn M.D., Th.D. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA

    Robert E. McCue

  2. Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA

    Meera Balasubramaniam

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Briscoe, J., Kinghorn, W. (2017). Spirituality, Religion, and Rational Suicide. In: McCue, R., Balasubramaniam, M. (eds) Rational Suicide in the Elderly. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32672-6_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32672-6_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32670-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32672-6

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