Year: 1986 Source: American Psychologist, v.41, no.7, (July 1986), p.806-812 SIEC No: 19870109

Common sense tells us that suicide is a mental health problem & health practitioners & institutions have a duty to prevent it. It is a function of the state to empower such professionals & institutions to impose intervention on persons diagnosed as a suicidal risk.In doing so the responsibility of a suicide becomes the mental health clinician or clinic.The author challenges this perspective & gives a view of suicide as an act of a moral agent for which that agent is ultimately responsible.