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Treating Suicidal Clients - Page 2

© Bronwen Schoombie

Think yourself into a depressive mode, and think of someone telling you those things. Then think of how totally disempowering they are. No. Your job is to help them to see the bigger picture. But remember. They are the experts in their own lives. Perhaps you place value on looks. Maybe they don't. So let them take the lead, and they will take to very interesting places, and you will see that the "unique outcome" (spoken about so often in narrative therapy) will be so apt, and yet also so surprising to you - because you would never have thought of it yourself. Why? Because you do not know the whole of that person's life, and never will unless you give him (her) a chance to relate it to you.

Work with the suicidal client as you would work with any other client, and you will find it just as rewarding. Get stuck on the "suicidal" part, and you have probably lost your grasp on that particular therapy. Good Luck.,When you hear the words, suicide, or attempted suicide, they often paralyse us, and we find ourselves unable to get along with the job at hand.

However, this is exactly what a good therapist should not allow to happen. Look at suicidal behavior as any other type of manipulation - or at least attention seeking behavior and work with what you have. Don't get side-tracked with the fact that your client may not be here tomorrow.

Of course, you cannot laugh off your responsibility either, and you need to put some checks and balances into place. If you are concerned about your client actually committing the act, then you might need to have her (him) admitted to a hospital, or you might arrange that a family member come and take care of him (her) at their home. You might have them call you frequently on your cell phone, and if you do not receive a message at the appointed time, you could have an agreement that you will call the police. Whatever unique solution fits with the client and his (her) situation is fine, so long as you have a pretty good idea that even if he (she) tries it, they won't get away with it.

This is a sad part of therapy, because so often depression is a state of feeling out of control, and the very act of placing all these checks and balances in place is sort of taking the ball out of the client's court. But then again; he or she has placed you in a difficult position (legally if one of your clients does commit suicide you can be in very deep water), and if he hadn't pushed it this far, you might have given him or her more leeway.

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