In this article we try to elaborate the proposition ‘there is no place for euthanasia in psychiatry’. With that ‘euthanasia’ as well as ‘psychiatry’ get another understanding. A request for euthanasia because of psychic suffering is a symptom of that suffering. A psychotherapeutic psychiatry doesn’t consider such a request as a fixed entity but as an explicit experiencing that can be brought into process. We need the distinction between explicit and implicit experiencing. Such a request has an implicit ‘subsoil’ which we can reach and make to move and which can lead to a new explicit experiencing.
psychiatry, psychic suffering, request for euthanasia, psychotherapy
The tPeP (Journal Person-centered experiential Psychotherapy) is the scientific journal for Dutch and Flemish psychotherapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists, that work from, or are interested in a client-centered perspective.
