Addressing the Needs of the Patient who Requests Physician-assisted Suicide or Euthanasia (IN: Handbook of Psychiatry in Palliative Medicine, ed. by H M Chochinov and W Breitbart)

This chapter does not attempt to debate whether requests for assisted suicide is rational or ethical but rather emphasizes the importance of understanding the complexities involved in a request for hastened death. Understanding the desire to hasten death demands that clinicians improve their appreciation of a number of psychiatric, social, & medical factors. At present, these factors are poorly recognized & treated in the clinical situation, & they have not been well studied by researchers. (36 refs)