Citation

Kane A. Br. J. Psychother. 2019; 35(2): 195-214.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/bjp.12447

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper explores the issue of assisted suicide in relation to disabled people from a psychosocial perspective. The implications, particularly the unconscious implications, for disabled people and for the psychosocial dynamics around disability if assisted suicide was made lawful in the UK are explored. Assisted suicide is the subject of persistent attempts at legal change and while not, in theory, specific to disabled people, the issue brings some of the psychosocial dynamics around impairment and disability into focus, illuminating the attitudes and emotions with which disabled people must try to live. Psychoanalytic ideas in relation to trauma, loss, mourning and containment are drawn upon with particular reference to the work of Freud, Klein, Bion and more contemporary thinkers such as Garland, Sinason and Rustin. The paper draws on three texts by disabled people in order to explore emotional responses to profound impairment. Attachment theory helps in considering varying narrative styles. Disability studies literature and legal, social and political contextual issues inform the psychosocial perspective applied in the paper. © 2019 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Language: en

Keywords

Trauma; disability; human; suicide; law; Disability; assisted suicide; social support; anxiety; psychosis; mourning; psychoanalysis; questionnaire; interpersonal communication; social psychology; emotion; social behavior; mental deficiency; Loss; illness behavior; disabled person; Impairment; ego development; intellectual impairment; Article; Mourning; Narrative; Psychosocial; Assisted Suicide; Containment; egocentricity; Facilitating Environment; Social Model