During a couple of my presentations at the ACA conference in Toronto (pictured above) I wasn’t able to fit in some short demonstration videos. To address my time management problems, I’m posting links to them here, along with a short description. Note: All of the videos for suicide demonstrations are non-scripted simulations.

Video 1: An example of an opening of a session with Kennedy, a 15-year-old cisgender white female with a history of suicidal ideation. Key things to watch for include how I immediately mention suicide, focus on sources of distress in Kennedy’s life, and acknowledge things I know and things I don’t know. If we think about emotional distress (aka Shneidman’s psychache) as contributing to suicidality, contemplate what you think is the driver of Kennedy’s feelings of suicidality. The link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR7YU0VrHqw&t=5s

Video 2: An example of me closing the session with Kennedy using Stanley & Brown’s (2013) Safety Planning Intervention. As always, I’m not perfect in the video, but it shows a process during which I’m trying to cover the safety planning categories in an interpersonally engaging and pleasant manner. The link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd7PM9HFDO4&t=10s

Video 3: I’m working with Chase, a 35-year-old Gay cisgender male. In this video, I try to get Chase to see a potential pattern of him being suicidal in response to bullying in the past and being interpersonally invalidated in the present. Chase dismisses my “light interpretation” with something like, “That’s the hand I was dealt.” Again, although I’m imperfect in this video, I do take the hint and shift from an abstract interpretation to a concrete assessment process I call the “Social Universe.” During that process, it becomes clear that Chase is spending too much time with “toxic” people in his life and not much time with people who accept him. Additionally, he presents as quite depressed and unable to come up with anyone “validating” and so I shift to a process called, “Building hope from the bottom up” by asking him, “Who’s the least validating or most toxic?” Chase responds pretty well to a process that starts at the bottom or most negative place.”  The link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNBR3bKyE4I&t=7s

Thanks to everyone who attended the ACA conference, for being the kind of professionals who are pursuing awareness, knowledge, and skills in order to be more effective in helping others life meaningful lives. I was humbled by your engagement with the learning process.