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Summary, Conclusions, Implications

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The Evolution of Suicide

Part of the book series: Evolutionary Psychology ((EVOLPSYCH))

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Abstract

An integrated “pain and brain” theory of the evolution of suicide is proposed, which appears to fulfil the original objectives set for the investigation. The theory may help to elucidate, incidentally, a diversity of human psychological and psychiatric phenomena that are otherwise difficult to explain and synthesise. Some implications of this theoretical framework are noted for suicide research, suicide prevention strategies, and broader mental health policy. The model offers theoretical support for the view that a search for usefully predictive biomarkers of suicide risk is unlikely to succeed, and that more effective preventative solutions probably lie in public health measures to restrict access to lethal means. A psychopharmaceutical paradigm for the treatment of mental disorders is challenged. The suicide taboo may be broadly protective, but it may also impede the study of suicide. An invitation to look more closely at the evolution of suicide is made, on the grounds that it may underlie many aspects of human thought and behaviour, including most people’s sense that life is worth living.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Psychopharmacology may be understood as an exogenous, medically sanctioned analogue, perhaps, to the compulsively self-administered analgesia of emotional pain that, as suggested in Chaps. 4 and 5, may underlie substance addictions.

  2. 2.

    But not all (Lilienfeld, 2007).

  3. 3.

    There are precedents for some components of the model proposed in this book. In particular, Himmelhoch (1988) authored a paper asking “What destroys our restraints against suicide?” while Hundert (1992) wrote of “The brain’s capacity to form delusions as an evolutionary strategy for survival.” Neither provides an evolutionary account of why and how such restraints and strategies would have evolved or their implications. Humphrey (2018) infers that defences against suicide would have evolved but expects them to be primarily cultural – brain-type fenders , by this book’s terminology. The gist of several key proposals in this book, and then a draft PhD thesis, were presented by the author with the aid of a poster at a 2016 international suicidology conference (Soper, 2016).

  4. 4.

    As an exception, perhaps, the idea of cultural evolution , touched upon in Chap. 7 in the context of the suicide taboo , may be contentious. Not all evolutionists may be comfortable with the principle that nearly universal cultural ideas might spread through a process of group selection (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992), although even here a rapprochement between schools appears to have emerged (Wilson & Wilson, 2007).

  5. 5.

    It is possible that this volume too is unwittingly affected by similar subjectivity.

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Soper, C.A. (2018). Summary, Conclusions, Implications. In: The Evolution of Suicide. Evolutionary Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77300-1_8

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