The Suicide in the Perspective of Humanistic, Phenomenological and Existential Psychologies: Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis

Abstract

We aim to analyze the national scientific productions about the suicide according to humanistic, phenomenological and existential psychologies. The systematic review method was used followed by a qualitative meta-synthesis of the findings. We computed 18 articles categorized and analyzed according to title, authorship, database, journal, year of publication, discussion area, type of study, objectives and results. The results demonstrates: prominence of productions in Revista da Abordagem Gestáltica; concentration of publications in PePSIC; productions agglomeration in the last decade, due to suicide prevention policies; expressiveness of productions affiliated to UFRN; concentration of empirical studies guided by the phenomenological method and influenced by Heidegger. The findings were synthesized according the: relationship between psychopathology and suicide; motives and explanations about suicide; phenomenological-existential thinking about suicide; humanistic, phenomenological and existential practices and interventions in treatment. We conclude that the studies consider the traditional biomedical perspectives of suicide’s thinking and management, however they try to rethink this based on more subjective and comprehensive clinical lenses.