Psychobabble

This coming spring, Canada is set to allow those who suffer a mental illness to apply for medically assisted suicide. Belgium and Netherlands already allow it for mental illness that is deemed insufferable, mostly depressions, which make up around 1-2% of their total assisted suicides. In Switzerland the total rate of assisted suicides tripled from 2003-2014 , it’s estimated 4% are psychiatric patients . The general consensus in the public conversation about assisted suicide seems to be support for it given old age, insufferable and untreatable illness, and an alternative to a shameful way of living. It’s not difficult to agree that someone shouldn’t be made to suffer unnecessarily. The largest organization who offers assisted suicide here is EXIT; they advertise self- determination and dignity in death. For many, suicide is a serious solution and something to be considered given the right circumstances. However, during my training I was taught that suicide monitoring and prev...

In Zürich I am surrounded by people (including my husband) working in the finance sector, big 4 consultancies, banks, insurances - all the big corporations. The stories I hear, the way they speak to each other about their workplace, I am surprised they can function properly at all. I know statistics is where fun goes to die, but just to bring you onboard: Psychopathy in the general population is only thought to be about 1%, in a prison population its around 15%, and the percentage of corporate senior leadership who display psychopathic traits is 12% . The hallmarks of the psychopaths we are talking about here are grandiosity, inflated self- importance, fantasizing about power, success and brilliance. In relations to others, they are exploitative and manipulative; they will use you to provide material to push them forward in their ambition, when you succeed, they can shine their light of confidence on you. This feels very bright and nice, a contrast to how they deprecate you when you ...