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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

SO294

From absurdity to autonomy: philosophical perspectives on suicide and their implications for psychiatric practice

FROM ABSURDITY TO AUTONOMY: PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SUICIDE AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR PSYCHIATRIC PRACTICE

Integrating philosophical perspectives on suicide into clinical thinking may enable a more nuanced assessment that does not reduce risk solely to psychopathology and takes into account the patient's subjective experience of suffering and autonomy.

The study aimed to examine different philosophical perspectives on suicide and discuss their implications for contemporary psychiatric practice. The method was a narrative literature review focusing on selected authors, including Albert Camus, Seneca, David Hume, and Thomas Joiner; these perspectives were compared in terms of autonomy, suffering, meaning, and clinical responsibility. The findings describe Seneca's argument that choosing death under certain circumstances is not necessarily irrational or morally wrong, but may be understood as a deliberate response to conditions incompatible with a life lived with reason and dignity. They also describe Hume's challenge to the idea that suicide is inherently immoral and his contention that individuals may have a legitimate interest in determining the course of their own lives. Camus approached suicide as the fundamental philosophical question in the face of the absurd, advocating revolt and continued engagement with life in response to the conflict between the human search for meaning and a seemingly indifferent world. Contemporary perspectives, in turn, conceptualize suicide as a complex, multifactorial phenomenon shaped by psychological, biological, social, interpersonal, and environmental factors, supporting multidimensional risk assessment. These approaches highlight the tensions between autonomy and protection, and between rationality and pathology. The clinical implications include recommendations not to reduce the experience of suicidality solely to psychopathology, to understand the subjective meaning patients assign to their suffering, and to consider autonomy, decision-making capacity, and mental state together during assessment. The authors suggest that integrating philosophical dimensions may enrich the understanding of suicidal behavior and strengthen both risk assessment and the therapeutic relationship.

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