Helplessness and vulnerability to suicide in the pandemic

ABSTRACT

This article aims to analyze the vulnerabilities and psychosocial impacts of the pandemic of the Covid-19 in relation to the suicidal act. Starting from the concepts of prevention and health care, vulnerability and helplessness, bibliographic productions from the fields of public health, mental health and psychoanalysis were analyzed in order to investigate how the feeling of helplessness in the face of the pandemic and the situation of vulnerability affect those susceptible people to psychological suffering. The pandemic worsened the dimensions of social inequality and increased the conditions of vulnerability, mainly related to the sanitary, housing and health conditions of the population. For this, we consider that the strengthening of public policies -health, education and social welfare -can represent a confrontation with the pandemic and the collective feeling of anguish, fear and feeling of helplessness in the face of uncertainties.