Historical Context of Suicide in Religion

Historically, most religions have viewed suicide as a grave matter. Traditionally, it has often been considered a sin or a moral failing. However, the interpretation of suicide in religious contexts has evolved, reflecting changes in societal attitudes and understanding of mental health.

Religious Perspectives on Suicide

• Christianity

  • Fundamental View: Life is viewed as a sacred gift from God, and taking one’s own life is often interpreted as a rejection of this gift.
  • Scriptural References: The Bible, while not explicitly mentioning suicide, has been interpreted to consider it under the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13), extending this commandment to include self-harm.
  • Interpretation of Suicide: Traditionally, suicide is considered a significant sin in Christianity. This stems from the belief that life is sacred and only God has the authority to end it.
  • Afterlife Consequences: Historically, suicide was believed to lead to eternal damnation. However, modern Christian denominations often approach this topic with more compassion, acknowledging the complexities of mental health and emphasizing God’s mercy and understanding.
  • Contemporary Views: Contemporary Christian views vary, with some denominations maintaining traditional stances, while others adopt more understanding and supportive approaches towards individuals who struggle with suicidal thoughts, often emphasizing the need for compassion and mental health support.
• Islam
  • Fundamental View: Life is sacred and only Allah has the authority to take it.
  • Scriptural References: The Quran explicitly states that one should not kill oneself (4:29).
  • Interpretation: Suicide is considered a major sin, and it is believed that it leads to eternal punishment in hell.
  • Contemporary Views: While the traditional view remains strong, there is an increasing awareness and sensitivity towards mental health issues.
• Hinduism
  • Fundamental View: Life and death are part of the cycle of samsara (rebirth), and suicide interferes with this natural cycle.
  • Scriptural References: Various texts discuss the consequences of suicide, often viewing it unfavorably.
  • Interpretation: Suicide is generally seen as a negative act that leads to negative karmic consequences.
  • Contemporary Views: Modern interpretations tend to emphasize compassion and understanding for those who commit suicide, seeing it as a result of ignorance or suffering.
• Buddhism
  • Fundamental View: Life is precious and one should not harm oneself or others.
  • Scriptural References: Buddhist teachings generally discourage any form of self-harm.
  • Interpretation: Suicide is viewed as an unskillful act that generates negative karma and hinders spiritual progress.
  • Afterlife Consequences: It is believed that suicide can lead to rebirth in lower realms of existence.
• Scientology
  • Fundamental View: Scientology views life as a journey of spiritual enlightenment and self-discovery.
  • Interpretation: While there is no explicit scriptural reference to suicide, it is generally viewed as a tragic end that cuts short the spiritual journey.
  • Afterlife Consequences: Scientology believes in the immortal nature of the human spirit; however, the specific consequences of suicide are not clearly defined.
  • Contemporary Views: The focus is more on spiritual well-being and mental health to prevent such outcomes.

Comparative Analysis

These religions, while diverse in their teachings, share a common reverence for life. Suicide is generally viewed negatively, yet there is a growing trend towards understanding and compassion, especially in the context of mental health.

Impact of Religious Views on Suicide Prevention and Mental Health

Religious teachings significantly shape the beliefs and attitudes of their followers toward life, death, and the morality of suicide. These beliefs critically influence how individuals within these communities view and respond to mental health issues and suicidal behavior. In some traditions, the perception of suicide as a sin or moral failing contributes to stigma, potentially discouraging individuals from seeking help. However, religious teachings that emphasize compassion and understanding can foster supportive environments for those struggling with mental health issues.

Religious leaders often play a vital role in guiding their communities on ethical and moral issues, including those related to suicide and mental health. Their interpretations of religious teachings can either contribute to stigma or help in destigmatizing mental health challenges. Additionally, many religious communities provide a network of support, offering counseling, social support, and a sense of belonging, which can be crucial for individuals facing mental health struggles or suicidal thoughts.

Spiritual practices such as prayer, meditation, and participation in religious services can offer solace and coping mechanisms for individuals dealing with stress, depression, or suicidal thoughts. Moreover, religious teachings often address the nature of suffering, resilience, and coping, providing a framework for individuals to understand and navigate their struggles.

Some religious groups have initiated programs to educate their members about mental health, recognizing the signs of suicidal behavior, and providing information on seeking help. There’s also an increasing trend of religious organizations collaborating with mental health professionals to provide comprehensive support, recognizing the importance of both spiritual and psychological help.

Balancing traditional doctrinal views on suicide with the contemporary understanding of mental health presents both a challenge and an opportunity for religious communities. Ensuring that religious responses to suicide and mental health are inclusive and sensitive to the diverse needs of individuals is crucial for effective support and prevention efforts.

Conclusion

Understanding various religious perspectives on suicide is vital for a compassionate and comprehensive approach to this complex issue. While differences exist, the evolving views highlight a common move towards greater empathy and support for those suffering from mental health challenges.

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If you are dissatisfied with yourself and life, tormented by worries and anxieties, not satisfied with relationships with loved ones and realize that time after time you live the same internal scenarios that lead to suffering, and you cannot change them alone, this is a reason to seek help from a psychotherapist.

Making a decision to help your soul is the main step that gives you the necessary energy to start therapy and a fundamentally different attitude to your life.

Choosing a specialist and method is the second important step in therapy.

You have already realized that you need help and now you need to find the right specialist. One way to do this is to find out if someone in your community has already sought help and can share their experience and recommendations.

It is good to study the issue yourself and decide which method of work is closer to you. It is not an easy task, because there are many directions of depth psychology: Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian analytical psychology and others. In addition, there are alternative methods, such as psychodrama, Gestalt, existential-humanistic, cognitive behavioral and other therapies.

The third step is to agree on the terms of interaction with the therapist and to fulfill this agreement.

The basis for building a trusting relationship. It is necessary to agree on the time and place of meetings, and most importantly, to fulfill the agreements regularly and accurately. This will effectively form a therapeutic space in which the healing of the soul will take place.

The fourth step is to create contact with the unconscious.

Contact with the unconscious, an essential part of the psyche, is a feature of depth psychology. The psyche is often compared to an iceberg, where the upper, visible, part is consciousness and the unconscious is a huge block underwater.

Depth psychology utilizes the inexhaustible resources of the unconscious to heal and restore wholeness. The main methods of work are active imagination, analyzing dreams and images.

The fifth step is insight, living a new experience in relationship with the therapist.

Psychotherapy is a process in which the client, with the help of the therapist, works to debunk pathological beliefs that prevent the psyche from living a full life, negatively affect self-esteem, prevent him from achieving desired goals, make him bury his dreams and cause suffering.

Changing such beliefs is helped by new experiences lived in the therapeutic relationship: the client unconsciously tests his attitudes in interaction with the therapist. In the work comes the realization that the former beliefs are irrational and harmful, that they no longer help as before.

The sixth step is to create a sustainable therapeutic relationship.

The therapist-client relationship is the most important tool for healing the soul. They must be safe. The client follows his unconscious goals and plans in therapy, and his progress in therapy is governed by unconscious evaluations of danger and safety. A person progresses in therapy if they believe they can do so safely for themselves.

The seventh step is to analyze traumas and complexes.

A necessary step in the therapeutic relationship, without it effective therapy is impossible. Often painful reactions are caused by so-called negative transference: the client experiences unpleasant feelings towards the therapist, thus reliving traumas that he or she could not experience in relationships with other people. This is the most dangerous period in therapy, when there is a great desire to end the process, because the states can be very challenging.

The eighth step is the synthesis of wholeness, spiritual growth and development.

This is the stage at which a person no longer feels the pressure of complexes and traumas, can accept himself and is not afraid to come into contact with reality. He becomes internally balanced and begins to trust himself and notices that now his psychic energy is sufficient to release his unique personality from the subjugation of conscious and unconscious limitations. This is an opportunity to go beyond mere adaptation to the collective and social aspects of life and to follow the path of spiritual growth and development.

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The very first thing that comes to mind is anxiety disorder. Therapy is able to reduce it, and in some cases – and remove it altogether. The person begins to live a peaceful life, panic attacks stop happening to him. Therapy also helps to cope with traumas that form negative patterns of behavior, when a person often gets into acute states and does not understand why. In therapy, the client gets to the root cause of the trauma. And so he learns if not to eliminate the trauma completely, then at least to get along with it, to control it in his life.

For example, attachment trauma. For example, the mother was inconstant or the child was often and for a long time taken to the grandmother. In such cases, the child develops an anxious attachment. In adulthood, this person, when creating any relationship, cannot understand why he or she is unable to create intimacy, to get a natural, healthy attachment. In therapy, we find a reason for this. It’s like being sent to grandma’s house for a long time or being sent to an elite full-time school. And then, it turns out, it negatively affects the future, forms a trauma. Then the work of the therapist is to make the person understand this trauma and learn, based on all the consequences, gradually build healthy relationships with others.

Does therapy have any effect on emotional intelligence or is it innate and cannot be “fixed”?

Therapy increases both emotional and social intelligence. When a person becomes more inwardly oriented, he or she is much more effective in communicating with the environment. If we do not notice our aggression, skin inflammations can appear in this place, for example. But if we realize our anger, discontent, know how to protect ourselves from toxic people, then, of course, the quality of our life becomes higher.

How does emotional intelligence differ from social intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is when a person has a good understanding of their emotional life. Not just an understanding of feelings, but the ability to live them.

Social intelligence is the ability to trace interrelationships between people, patterns in actions. In women, it is a little better developed, because they are still in childhood playing, for example, in dolls, and thus learn the first social connections. Boys are a little different. They later learn to recognize the interrelationships between people, groups of people.

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Psychoanalysis – a method of influence on mental disorders, based on the theory developed by Sigmund Freud in 1890. It consists of working with internal, unconscious, irrational drives, defense mechanisms, and unconscious material by making it conscious. It is working with inner mental processes and resolving conflicts between the conscious and unconscious parts of our selves.

Gestalt therapy – focused on self-awareness, based on an experimental-phenomenological approach. In the process of therapy, a holistic image (gestalt), an independent personality, is recreated and strengthened. Gestalt therapy is aimed at realizing and accepting a person’s self, rejected thoughts, emotions, needs, and individuality. One of the main principles of Gestalt therapy is completeness, the ability to live here-and-now, to enjoy every moment.

Art therapy is the expression and exploration of one’s own self through art. Through art a person conveys his/her emotions – anger, joy, fear, resentment, love, hate. Thus, there is self-expression and achievement of inner harmony, release of negative energy in a healthy way.

Existential psychotherapy – implies a person’s search, setting life goals, priorities, what to go for and ways to achieve it. It emphasizes core values. The goal is to get rid of suffering, focus on the main problems of existence, getting rid of fears, addictions, depression, obsessive thoughts, loneliness. Existential psychotherapy covers life situations, answers the question of what happens to us, not how we came to it, helps a person to realize who he is and who he wants to be.

Hippotherapy – treatment of psychological problems, as well as neurological disorders and other diseases with the help of horses, riding.

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One way to figure out what things are causing your anxiety is to keep a thought diary.

When you analyze the moments during which your anxiety is off the charts, you will notice certain patterns that indicate what may be triggering this feeling.

Once you know what makes you feel anxious, try to minimize the trigger’s impact on you.

Approaches to overcoming anxiety include medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as smoking and alcohol cessation and physical activity.

The therapy regimen should be developed by a psychiatrist. For diagnosis, a detailed history is taken and anxiety tests are used: Beck or Sheehan.

You can also take these tests yourself. Read more about them here.

In case of anxiety, prescription antidepressants are used – synthetic serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Seeing a specialist can also help with cognitive behavioral therapy, which is an approach to treating anxiety, clinical depression, and insomnia by changing attitudes and habitual thought patterns.

For example, you worry about whether you turned off the iron, picked up your passport, and whether you were rude in a business letter. But is there any reason for such anxiety?

How often have you forgotten your iron, passport, and said “you” to a business partner? So there’s no reason to be alarmed. Everything is more complicated, of course, and cognitive behavioral therapy is an evidence-based way to overcome mental disorders.

Many people believe that alcohol and cigarettes are calming. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: their absence is perceived by the brain as an alarm signal, and a new dose of nicotine or alcohol returns the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin to normal levels. But only temporarily.

Quitting smoking and alcohol will not immediately, but will certainly lead to a decrease in anxiety.

If left untreated, anxiety disorders can lead to depression, substance abuse, chronic lung and gastrointestinal diseases, chronic pain, social isolation and disability, insomnia, migraines, and even suicide.

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We are able to imagine in detail not only terrible events that can happen, but also our feelings at the same time. However, this same imagination can turn our fears into experiences and cause anxiety disorders.

It is quite normal to worry. Anxiety is a strong emotion that occurs when a person perceives danger. Unlike other strong feelings, anxiety is always associated with fear, conscious or unconscious. Whether the threat is real or imaginary, our brain does not care.

The signaling mechanism of anxiety, fueled by fear, is the basis of the instinct of self-preservation and is responsible for our safety. Anxiety mobilizes the body: it throws adrenaline and norepinephrine into the bloodstream, pumps blood into the muscles, fills the lungs with air, and increases blood pressure. It makes you run first and then think, while turning off everything unnecessary, including some parts of the human brain.

To distinguish between normal anxiety and a disorder, we need to differentiate between our experiences.

Useful experiences

• Realistic and reasonable
• Associated with a clear and high risk
• Help to mobilize and overcome difficulties
• Lead to concentration and energy
• Time-controlled and short-term
• Do not interfere with life

Harmful experiences

• Unrealistic, far-fetched, distorted
• Associated with low risk, exaggerated
• Take a person into the virtual reality of their experiences
• Energy is spent on worrying, not on solving the problem
• Difficult to control in time and last for a long time
• Interfere with life and functioning

Emotional symptoms of anxiety disorder

• Constant feeling of danger, fear
• Problems with concentration
• Restlessness, impatience
• Expectation of the worst
• Irritability
• Searching for signs of danger
• Devastation
• Overwhelm

Behavioral symptoms of anxiety disorder

• Inability to relax, enjoy peace, be yourself
• Difficulty concentrating
• Procrastination, putting things off for later
• Tendency to be alert
• Excessive thoughtfulness
• Loss of trust in life and people.
• Avoidance of situations that may cause anxiety

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Diagnosis of mental disorders

Early recognition of mental disorders is difficult because of the diversity of manifestations and the presence of common symptoms in different diagnoses. Standard tests and questionnaires are used for preliminary diagnosis and screening of mental disorders in adults and adolescents, while projective techniques are used with children.

Differential diagnosis of psychiatric disorders is carried out in the course of pathopsychological examination: the nature, strength and frequency of symptoms are specified, neurophysiological tests are carried out to detect organic brain dysfunction. To exclude somatic pathology may require hardware and laboratory tests – MRI of the brain, ECG, tests for basic biochemical indicators and hormone levels.

Treatment of mental disorders

Effective treatment of mental disorders is based on a combination of medication, physiotherapy and psychotherapy; regular sessions with a psychotherapist are sufficient for moderate neurotic reactions. Psychotherapeutic methods of treating mental disorders are aimed at reducing stress and discomfort, smoothing out character accentuations and improving social functioning.

Highly effective is the cognitive-behavioral method, which is based on identifying and overcoming destructive attitudes, resolving internal conflicts and developing constructive behavioral strategies. Art therapy, psychodrama and Gestalt therapy techniques are used to work with unconscious emotions and experiences; group psychotherapy is indicated for communication problems.

If symptoms indicate the development of psychosis, lead to obvious maladaptation or cause severe discomfort to the patient, medication correction is indicated. Depending on the clinical picture of the disorder and the patient’s state of health, the scheme includes tranquilizers, sedatives, neuroleptics, antidepressants, vitamins, nootropics and adaptogens.

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Excessive anxiety
Again, worrying from time to time is normal, but in people with generalized anxiety disorder, these worries don’t go away. People with this disorder worry about typical things, including health, money, or family problems, but on a larger scale. They continue to worry about these things even when there is no obvious reason to worry. This anxiety is often difficult to control and sufferers find it hard to focus on their daily tasks.

Sleep problems
Adults typically need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night and when sleep schedules are disrupted, it’s a sign that something is wrong. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, stress and anxiety can cause sleep problems, or exacerbate other problems such as difficulty falling asleep. Since sleep disturbances can lead to anxiety or worry, it’s best to talk to your doctor to determine the underlying causes, and what can be done to correct them.

Irrational fears
Anxiety is not generalized; instead, it is tied to a specific situation or subject, such as fear of flying, fear of animals, or fear of crowds. If the fear becomes overwhelming, destructive, and out of proportion to the actual risk, it is a clear sign of an anxiety disorder-type phobia. While phobias can be harmful, they are not always obvious.

Chronic digestive distress
Sometimes anxiety can cause more than a feeling of “butterflies in your stomach.” In fact, digestive problems – nausea, diarrhea, and upset digestion – are the main complaints associated with anxiety disorders. Although there are some steps a person can take to reduce gastrointestinal pain due to anxiety, such as breathing deeply or exercising regularly.

Stage fright
Stage fright is another symptom of anxiety. This kind of anxiety is experienced by many people before being in the spotlight. But if the fear is so severe that no amount of training or practice alleviates it, it may be a form of social anxiety disorder (also known as social phobia). People with social anxiety tend to worry for days or weeks before a certain event or situation.

Self-awareness
Social anxiety disorder doesn’t always involve talking to a crowd or being the center of attention. In most cases, anxiety is triggered by everyday situations, such as having a private conversation at a party or eating or drinking in front of a small number of people. In these situations, people with social anxiety disorder feel shy, feel as if all eyes are on them, blush, shiver, experience nausea, heavy sweating, or difficulty speaking.

Panic attacks
Panic attacks can be terrifying: it is a sudden, gripping feeling of fear and helplessness that can last for several minutes, accompanied by scary physical symptoms such as breathing problems, strong heartbeat, tingling or numbness in the hands, sweating, weakness or dizziness, chest pain, stomach pain, and feelings of hot or cold. These common physical signs are usually due to the body’s response. People with panic disorder live in fear, not realizing when, where or why their next attack might occur. They tend to avoid places where attacks have occurred in the past.

Flashbacks
Reliving an unsettling or traumatic event – an unpleasant encounter, the sudden death of a loved one – is a characteristic symptom of PTSD, which shares some features with anxiety disorders. (Until recently, in fact, PTSD was considered a type of anxiety disorder rather than an independent condition.) But flashbacks can happen with other types of anxiety as well. Some studies, including one in the Journal of Anksioznost, suggest that some people with social anxiety have symptoms similar to PTSD.

Perfectionism
Compulsive thinking, known as perfectionism, “goes hand-in-hand” with anxiety disorders. If a person frequently judges themselves or has a lot of anticipatory concern about mistakes or not meeting their standards, this is indicative of an anxiety disorder. Perfectionism is especially common in obsessive-compulsive disorder, which, like PTSD, has long been considered an anxiety disorder.

Compulsive Behavior
To be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, obsessive compulsive and compulsive thoughts – a person must be accompanied by compulsive behavior, whether mental (repeating to themselves that everything will be okay over and over again) or physical (hand washing). Obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior becomes a full-blown disorder when the need to complete “rituals” arises and it begins to rule his life.

Insecurity
Constant insecurity and self-doubt is a common feature of anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In some cases, the doubts may revolve around an issue that is pivotal to a person’s personality or relationships. In obsessive-compulsive disorder, these “bouts of doubt” are especially common when there is no answer to the question.

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Mental disorders are not like appendicitis, which can be taken out once and forgotten about forever.

That is, there is no 100 percent guarantee that when you are cured of a mental disorder, it won’t reappear. It depends not only on the quality of treatment, but also on a large number of other factors.

In addition, there are some mental disorders that require lifelong medication, such as schizophrenia. There are also times when some disorders require repeated courses of treatment, like panic disorder.

Some mental disorders may recur in some people, and some people may never face their problem again. This is what happens with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or acute transient psychosis.

Imagine that our mental health and the problems associated with it are a continuum (a segment), and we move along it over the course of our lives in different directions – from mental wellbeing to mental health problems and vice versa.

That is, anyone can develop a mental disorder at any time, but this will be influenced by a number of factors.

Factors affecting the human psyche:

• experiences from childhood;
• presence or absence of experience of traumatic events;
• lifestyle – physical activity, sleep, nutrition;
• social ties and environment;
• stress and the ability to cope with it;
• genetic predisposition;
• environment;
• substance use;
• certain infections and somatic diseases.

If it is not possible to cope independently – it is necessary to turn to a psychologist or psychiatrist.

However, it is important not to forget that the treatment of mental illness depends not only on doctors, but also on patients and their desire to work on themselves.

You can reduce the risks of developing disorders, but, unfortunately, you can’t avoid their occurrence.

Especially difficult is living traumatic situations, and even one recklessly chosen word can destroy the entire inner world of a person. Therefore, read how to communicate tolerantly in times of war and not to harm yourself or others.

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As a rule, a depressive state is a reaction to a long-term traumatic situation, life crises, conflicts with others, problems in school, work or family life. The danger of depression is that it manifests itself in the form of disorders in the following areas:

• cognitive activity. Sluggishness of thinking, memory impairment, problems with concentration, difficulty remembering new information and other manifestations;
• behavioral changes. Narrowing of the circle of communication, suicidal actions, general passivity, unwillingness to participate in collective activities;
• physiologic activity. Sleep disorders, loss of appetite, problems with libido, digestive tract dysfunction;
• emotional reactions. Decreased self-esteem, inability to rejoice and experience other positive emotions, anxiety, self-injury, despair.

Only an experienced doctor, after collecting anamnesis and test results can diagnose depression. However, you can make a preliminary conclusion about whether you have depression by taking an online test directly on our website.

Leave the above symptoms without attention should not be ignored – it is necessary to seek qualified help, because depression, especially in a severe stage, very rarely goes away by itself.

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