Psychiatry in Kurdistan

Abstract

for targets and categories by statisticians and epidemiologists, documents such as the Health of the Nation report (Department of Health, 1992) and the literature and correspondence created in its wake, do little to investigate the real motives which impel someone to take his or her own life. I do not think psychiatrists should be so easily satisfied to accept these frankly crude targets without qualification and without raising politi cal points for discussion. The current moral and political climate engenders despair, and the loss of personal and family security, the impaired quality of existence and the erosion of the sense of conscious, authentic personal responsibility has lead to a weariness of life for which remedy is not easily found. Weariness with life is an emotional and political problem which cannot be treated by less toxic anti-depressants in overdose, or easily set targets.