In two separate interventions, two psychiatrists of the public sector (Pietro Pellegrini and Euro Pozzi) discuss the "Recommendations for suicide prevention" promulgated in 2012 by the Italian region Emilia-Romagna. The issue of suicide is complex. Already in 1897 Émile Durhkeim argued that suicide cannot be reduced to psychopathology, but is related to the quality of "social bond", and it has to be seen as a "social fact". The relationship between suicide and mental disorder is discussed in light of the DSM’s oversimplified conception of psychopathology, and of the gaps between theoretical and real predictability and between recommendations and actual clinical work. Suicide is not only a psychiatric problem. In order to avoid the practice of a "defensive psychiatry", mental health system cannot compensate for other systems (social, economical, etc.).
Keywords: Suicide, guidelines in psychiatry, social bond, responsibility, sentinel event