More than 50 years ago, the American psychologist James Hillman wrote a book entitled Suicide and the Soul. It was intended for therapists and he knew it would not receive an easy reception either there or elsewhere. There were reasons for that. He frankly admitted that some of the things he proposed in the book would “go against all common sense, all medical practice, and rationality itself ”. But in trying to understand suicide isn’t that exactly the case, that it goes against all common sense, all medical practice and rationality itself ? And that’s his point.