CFP: Mental Health and Suicide from a philosophical perspective

The network of ideas and actions that are generated around suicide is long-standing in the history of humanity. However, and based on the complexities of the contemporary world, the link between suicide and mental health seems to narrow and complicate. From philosophy, various perspectives appear that show such complexities in the reading of the world and the political, economic and social contexts. There is talk, for example, of a "society of tiredness" or of "capitalism and schizophrenia", which would have a significant impact on the configuration of world senses and on human actions.

Durkheim already attributed a strong link to the pressures that the environment exerts on people's lives when it comes to concreting the suicidal act, opposing those perspectives that consider it as a manifestation of autonomy, an act of liberation, or a form of protest that could be translated into the expression of a political act exercised from the sovereignty of itself. In this perspective, the reference to the contexts and systems of meaning and meaning are unavoidable.

The information available for now, indicates that the completion of the suicidal act presents a sustained increase worldwide. According to OECD data only from 1990 to 2011, the suicide rate in Chile increased by 90% 1. These figures, which of course do not exhaust the subject, are evidencing the position that the complex of elements that interact around suicide has today. On the other hand, it must be considered that today the demand that presents the need to work in the design of public policies that meet the circumstances in an ethical perspective is consolidated.

Given this, we hope that the philosophical gaze allows to deepen and problematize the subject of suicide and its possible links with mental health. How should the problem of suicide be addressed? Should the focus be more on the social impact or on the suffering of the person who commits the act? To what extent is suicide and suicidal ideation unique to the field of mental health? If suicide is linked to the problem of meaning, does it exceed the institutionalized treatment that mental health could give you? What are the approaches to suicide from a mental health perspective? Does mental health treatment constitute a limit or a danger to the suicide approach?

In order to try to understand more about suicide, the call to publish is thematically broad, although it seeks to problematize the reflection on suicide and its links or un-links with the field of mental health. In this perspective, a meeting of diversity of views should be fostered, which in a pluralistic perspective, can counterbalance those approaches that have historically institutionalized suicide from rigid and moralistic perspectives, associated only with a health problem, since it could be occurring precisely suicide, invites us to rethink, expand and enrich the scope of what we understand by health in a general sense and mental health, in a particular perspective. Talking about suicide and the framework of philosophical concepts in which it is inserted, offers the possibility of a greater scope in understanding society, political and economic systems, the production of subjectivities, the role of nihilism and positioning that man has in the world. In this perspective, it is important to consider suicide and suicidal ideation as a possibility, as Cioran pointed out.
On the other hand, it is relevant to consider the projections around suicide and the new perspectives that open up from the social, political, health, structural crises, etc., in the context of globalization and global phenomena.

The manuscripts will be received until Friday, January 31 at 3:00 p.m., according to the instructions for the authors available at https://revistamutatismutandis.com/index.php/mutatismutandis/normas

The papers are projected to be published in June 2021.

Editorial team Mutatis Mutandis

Dr. Sandra Baquedano Jer

Editor