Understanding and working with suicidality

One person dies by suicide every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. By the nature of our work, every therapist can expect to experience at least one suicidal client. Clients who have suicidal thoughts and managing the risk of that are two things that therapists can find most challenging in their work.

The fear of judgement should a client die by suicide can invade the therapeutic space, interfering with the relationship. Wherever you are working it can feel scary and lonely to carry the weight of suicidal clients. Therapists may feel compelled to break confidentiality rather than risk censure. So how do we manage the balance?

In this new workshop from Inspire CPD for Therapists, we will look at this subject from both an experiential and practical perspective. In particular, we will look at the cutting-edge IMV model of suicide and how that assists us in having a much clearer idea of who may be most at risk.

In this workshop, we will:

• Give space to our thoughts and understanding of suicide and its impact on us as therapists and how our own attitudes to suicide may impact the therapeutic relationship.
• Investigate who is most at risk of dying by suicide.
• Explore what suicidal pain is like for our clients.
• Look at the myths and misunderstandings that still exist around this subject.
• Learn why talking about suicide is so important.
• Understand the impact of the media on suicidal behaviour.
• Learn more about the Integrated Motivational-Volitional (IMV) model of suicide behaviour. This helps us understand the pathway from mental pain to suicidal thoughts to acts of suicide, so aiding our risk assessment and ongoing decision-making and interventions.
• Understand how traits such as perfectionism as well as the impact of early life experiences add to a client’s vulnerability.
• Understand eight key factors that are associated with an increased likelihood that someone will act on their suicidal thoughts.
• Look at safety planning – how we can use this both in work with new clients and with long-term clients.
• Explore how our own attitudes to suicide may impact the therapeutic relationship.
• Look at our ethical/legal obligations regarding breaching confidentiality and outline what happens if we lose a client by suicide.
• Look at therapist self-care.

For more information and to book your place, please visit inspirecpdfortherapists.com