Fractured Personhood, Suicide, and Lessons from Those Nearing Death

Sometimes dying patients teach us things that apply across the entirety of the life cycle. There is a significant literature indicating that some patients toward end of life covet an earlier, or hastened, death. Many of the things that move patients toward a wish to die can be subsumed under the rubric of fractured personhood. This idea describes a state of brokenness, causing people to feel they are no longer the person they once were, and that the person they have become is no longer worthy of living. This article explores the idea of fractioned personhood, and how this concept might inform our understanding of self-harm and suicide within the general population.