Devastating illnesses can bring patients to the brink of a seemingly agreeable suicide. The role of the psychiatrist can be to look coldly through the pain and determine if there is a way to save the patient's life and make it worth enduring. Then the clinician must be prepared to enact what he perceives.
In 1986, my mentor and suicidologist, Dr. Edwin Shneidman, asked me to see a patient that he had consulted on. Before I did, he told me...
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