“The greatest happiness is the one who can escape the suffering the most,” said Arthur Schopenhauer.
Yet how long can we truly escape suffering? Is not life itself a trauma? Is not birth itself a trauma?
Is it possible to long for death so deeply, and yet fear it, while still wanting to live?
One detaches from life — existing as if they are the only person in the world.
Dark streets pretend to be blind, deaf, and mute… people move like shadows, unable to hear the voices of others.
Even laughter becomes painful, and one begins to long for silence — to no longer hear their own echo.
Before her death, Virginia Woolf left a note to her husband Leonard Woolf:
“I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times.
I can’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate.”
According to Nancy Williams,
“They are accustomed to pain, disappointment, and deprivation.
In childhood, they often had to endure pain, belittlement, or neglect in order to be loved.”
Suicide is often seen as the end of life — a tragic act of helplessness.
However, from psychodynamic and schema therapy perspectives, it represents the peak of unbearable inner conflict.
Behind it lies not only a wish to die but a desperate desire to silence hostile inner voices,
to escape endless self-punishment, and to put an end to the fragmented self.
Psychodynamic Explanations
Sigmund Freud defined suicide as aggression turned inward.
The rage once directed toward others becomes redirected toward the self.
Object relations theorists expanded this idea, emphasizing that suicidal impulses often arise from internalized rejecting, abandoning, or hostile caregivers.
Individuals prone to suicidal thoughts or behaviors often display masochistic tendencies.
According to Nancy Williams, this is an unconscious attempt to link love and pain —
to experience affection only through suffering.
Their inner world fuses with the belief of “being loved through suffering.”
Such individuals often find themselves in self-defeating relationships or environments that mirror worthlessness.
They may sabotage their own success or punish themselves right at the edge of happiness,
driven by the belief that they “do not deserve good things.”
They may appear loyal and self-sacrificing, but internally they carry persistent anger and grief.
They are skilled at meeting others’ needs, yet their sacrifices merge with invisibility and devaluation.
When the internal world becomes filled with destructive, rejecting objects, death begins to appear as the only escape.
According to self-object theory, suicide reflects the absence of empathic mirroring —
when the self is unseen and unsupported, it collapses into fragmentation.
In therapy, suicidal communication often emerges through transference —
as a desperate need “to be seen, held, and recognized.”
Schema Therapy And Suicide
Schema therapy interprets suicide through early maladaptive schemas and modes.
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The Vulnerable Child mode carries the unbearable pain of abandonment, defectiveness, and loneliness.
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The Punitive Parent mode represents the harsh inner voice that judges and condemns the self — “You deserve to be destroyed.”
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The Social Isolation schema withdraws the individual from life, numbs emotion, and blocks connection.
When these modes dominate and the Healthy Adult mode cannot intervene,
suicide appears as the final escape from inner torment.
Therapeutic Pathways
In psychodynamic therapy, the goal is to uncover unconscious conflicts,
give language to suppressed grief and rage, and reshape destructive internal relationships through the therapeutic bond.
Nancy Williams notes a unique difficulty in therapy:
Even as patients begin to improve, they may regress, unable to tolerate a life without suffering.
The therapist’s task is to help them internalize a new message —
that a relationship without pain is possible.
In schema therapy, healing involves mode work:
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Strengthening the Healthy Adult,
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Soothing the Vulnerable Child,
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Softening the Punitive Parent.
Both approaches share a core belief:
Suicide prevention is not only crisis management but the reconstruction of the inner world.
The therapeutic relationship itself becomes a reparative experience,
restoring the individual’s sense of worth, safety, and connection to life.
The Meaning Of Suicide Through The Inner Lens
Suicide is not merely an escape from life;
it is the expression of psychic pain born from a wounded inner world.
From a psychodynamic perspective, it is the voice of rage, loss, and the unhealed wound.
From a schema therapy perspective, it is the cry of punitive modes overwhelming the fragile self.
Healing begins with nurturing the inner child,
softening the cruel inner voices,
and rebuilding the right to live within one’s psyche.
Ultimately, suicide prevention is the act of restoring hope and emotional connection —
reclaiming the right to be seen, to feel, and to live.
References
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Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and Melancholia.
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Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Azure Coyote Books.
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Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
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Williams, N. (2017). Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process. Guilford Press.