prof. dr hab. Tadeusz BORYS – Uniwersytet Zielonogórski, Instytut Nauk o Zarządzaniu i Jakości, ul. Podgórna 50, 65-246 Zielona Góra, Polska, e-mail: t.borys@wez.uz.zgora.pl
Received 2.06.2026. Accepted 9.06.2026
pp. 2-20
Abstract
Purpose: This article is the second part of the publication, in which I have attempted to present an extremely rich set of perspectives through which SELF-destruction can be viewed as a multidimensional and interdisciplinary phenomenon. It is this multidimensionality that prompted me to present various approaches to the complex structure of human SELF-destruction in two thematically compact and at the same time complementary parts of viewing this phenomenon from different perspectives. In the first part [5] I divided the existing or postulated models of viewing SELF-destruction into two groups. In the first group of models, which dominates in theory and practice, the direction of implication from effect to cause is assumed, and that is why I have called them “reverse” models, in short – “from effect”, and in the second group, the opposite implication is assumed, the essence of which is explained by the cause-and-effect analysis. The preventive potential of the latter group of implications has led me to call these models “classic” (from cause to effect), or in short – “from the cause”. I also pointed out that the proposed division of models is essentially based on two different logics for explaining SELF-destruction. In this more analytical part, I have subordinated its content to the answers to the following three important questions for the quality of human life: (1) What are the existential symptoms of SELF-destruction? – i.e. what are the causes and effects at the first level of the cascade of human self-destruction; (2) what are the psychological symptoms of SELF-destruction? – i.e. what are the causes and effects at the second level; (3) what are the neurobiological symptoms of SELF-destruction ? – i.e. what are the causes and effects at the third level. The answers to these questions illustrate a cascade (stairs) that will reveal more specifically the next levels (layers) of the explanation of SELF-destruction in the proposed model from cause to effect. It is this cascade of layers of SELF-destruction that will be the subject of the second part of this article.
Research methodology: In the article, as in the first part, I used the method of logical analysis in relation to models “from the cause” and a review of the literature, taking into account the interdisciplinarity of the phenomenon of SELF-destruction.
Cognitive value: The features of the cognitive novelty of this study should be seen primarily in the presented cascading and integrated approach to SELF-destruction, based on cause-and-effect analysis – an approach very rarely presented in the literature on the subject, in which a disintegrated view of the phenomenon of SELF-destruction prevails. This prompted me to present a deeper analysis of the cause-and-effect model of this phenomenon. In my opinion, it is a more perspective view than the “from the effect” model, because it takes as its starting point the original cause of SELF-destruction, which is existential in nature with a clear axiological context. It is from this highest level of the cascade that the other two levels – psychological and neurobiological – originate in the proposed three-modular approach. This enabled me to integrate the “from the cause” model with the “from the effect” model in the next step.
Conclusions: The main conclusions of the article are found in the final part of the essay in the form of several conclusions, referring to the previously formulated research questions.
Keywords
quality of life, SELF-DESTRUCTION, models, cause, effect