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tijdschriftpersoonsgerichte
experiëntiële
psychotherapie
Process-oriented
Existential
Interactional
Integrative

Psychiatry and euthanasia

ARTICLEFrans Depestele - 57–2 (2019)

SUMMARY

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.

KEYWORDS

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.