As most of you know, I recently published an article in Psychotherapy Networker on my long-term experience of coping with the death of a client by suicide. In response to the article, I’ve gotten many supportive responses, some of which included additional published resources on coping with client death by suicide.
This blog post has two parts. First, I’m promoting the Networker article again to get it more widely shared as one resource for counselors and psychotherapists who have lost a client. Below, is an excerpt from the article. . . followed by a link. Please share with friends and colleagues as you see fit.
Second, at the end of this post I’m including additional resource articles that several people have shared with me over the past two weeks.
Here’s the excerpt . . .
The Prevention Myth
I’d worked with Ethan for about 20 sessions. Stocky, socially awkward, and intellectually gifted, he often avoided telling me much of anything, but his unhappiness was palpable. He didn’t fit in with classmates or connect with teachers. Ethan felt like a misfit at home and out of place at school. Nearly always, he experienced the grinding pain of being different, regardless of the context.
But aren’t we all different? Don’t we all suffer grinding pain, at least sometimes? What pushed Ethan to suicide when so many others, with equally difficult life situations and psychodynamics, stay alive?
One truth that reassures me now, and I wish I’d grasped back in the 1990s, is that empirical research generally affirms that suicide is unpredictable. This reality runs counter to much of what we hear from well-meaning suicide-prevention professionals. You may have heard the conventional wisdom: “Suicide is 100 percent preventable!” and, “If you educate yourself about risk factors and warning signs, and ask people directly about suicidal thoughts or plans, you can save lives.”
Although there’s some empirical evidence for these statements (i.e., sometimes suicide is preventable, and sometimes you can save lives), the general idea that knowledge of suicide risk, protective factors, and warning signs will equip clinicians to predict individual suicides is an illusion. In a 2017 large-scale meta-analysis covering 50 years of research on risk and protective factors, Joseph Franklin of Vanderbilt University and nine other prominent suicide researchers conducted an exhaustive analysis of 3,428 empirical studies. They found very little support for risk or protective factors as suicide predictors. In one of many of their sobering conclusions, they wrote, “It may be tempting to interpret some of the small differences across outcomes as having meaningful implications, . . . however, we note here that all risk factors were weak in magnitude and that any differences across outcomes . . . are not likely to be meaningful.”
Franklin and his collaborators were articulating the unpleasant conclusion that we have no good science-based tools for accurately predicting suicide. I hope this changes, but at the moment, I find comfort in the scientific validation of my personal experience. For years, I’ve held onto another suicide quotation for solace. In 1995, renowned suicidologist Robert Litman wrote, “When I am asked why one depressed and suicidal patient dies by suicide while nine other equally depressed and equally suicidal patients do not, I answer, ‘I don’t know.’”
Here are the additional resources people have shared with me:
Ellis, T. E., & Patel, A. B. (2012). Client suicide: what now?. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 19(2), 277-287.
Jorgensen, M. F., Bender, S., & McCutchen, A. (2021) “I’m haunted by it:” Experiences of licensed counselors who had a client die by suicide. Journal of Counselor Leadership and Advocacy. DOI: 10.1080/2326716X.2021.1916790
Knox, S., Burkard, A. W., Jackson, J. A., Schaack, A. M., & Hess, S. A. (2006). Therapists-in-training who experience a client suicide: Implications for supervision. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37(5), 547-557.
Ting, L., Jacobson, J. M., & Sanders, S. (2008). Available supports and coping behaviors of mental health social workers following fatal and nonfatal client suicidal behavior. Social work, 53(3), 211-221.
As always, thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Yesterday, Rita posted a free rooster to give away on a local Facebook page. She was surprised that no one claimed him. I waxed empathic, “I don’t understand,” I said, “people always want free things. Getting a free rooster would make the right person very happy.”
We’ve been studying happiness, but not the smiley sort of happiness. We’re into Aristotelian eudaimonic happiness (of course we are). You know, the sort of happiness you experience from living your life in ways that honor others and consistent with your deep values. That just might involve high-quality daily interactions with a free rooster. Think about it.
I was so puzzled by not having our rooster snapped up for immediate adoption that I took to the streets. Really, it was just one street. We’re living in Absarokee for the summer; there are streets, but not very many, and I only spent time on one street.
I cleverly wove the rooster opportunity into my banking business. With only two employees left in the bank on a late Friday afternoon, I asked with great cheer, “Would either of you like a free rooster?” They both quickly said “No thanks,” but I got my transaction processed in record time.
Rita was still in the grocery store (we were dividing and conquering our errands). I marched in, offered to carry her beer, and announced, “Hey. Anybody want a free rooster?” The cashiers avoided eye contact. The bagger started talking about his pigs; they made him happy. He didn’t need a rooster. I guess that proves it’s possible to have too much happiness.
Despite repeated rejections, I’m still convinced that our rooster could bring free happiness to someone. In fact, I think our failed transactions are evidence that happiness is in the eye of the beholder. When I was a teenager, our neighbors got a rooster. We woke up every morning to fantasies of murdering the neighbor’s rooster. I started plotting a late-night abduction. After all, roosters are the mother of opportunity. [I know that’s a wrong and terrible butchering of the saying “necessity is the mother of invention,” and I know that butchering must be the wrong word here, but I’m typing fast and consequently it’s impossible for me to suppress or repress my aggression and mother issues when free associating at this pace. Freud would be happy. But then Freud had his own peculiar tastes regarding what made him happy, which is, of course my point.
The famous Peanuts cartoonist, Charles Shulz, wrote a book titled, “Happiness is a warm puppy.” Although warm puppies likely bring happiness for many people, they’re certainly not the recipe for happiness for everyone. If I recall correctly, for Linus, happiness was a warm blanket.
And I can’t stop myself from thinking that, perhaps, for some lucky person out there . . .
. . . happiness is a warm, free, pet rooster.
If you’re that person, contact me, because right now, for me, happiness is giving away a free pet rooster.
Good morning. I’m listening to Dr. David Jobes talk about innovations in approaching suicide assessment and treatment. I’m struck by the breadth and depth of his knowledge . . . and also discouraged by him acknowledging how difficult it is to change people’s mindsets regarding suicidality and its treatment. At this point we ALREADY have many effective psychosocial treatments, but disappointingly, the media and public knowledge still leans toward profiling hospitalization and the potential of medication (both of which show very mixed results).
I’ll stop with my rant here and post my ppts. Thanks for reading . . . and be sure to get the word out on innovations in suicide assessment and treatment (aka psychosocial treatments).
The second of two consecutive suicide prevention conferences with free CEUs is tomorrow! Just in case you didn’t know, this conference, the Montana Conference on Suicide Prevention, has two full hours of David Jobes–the creator of CAMS–in the afternoon. How often do you get to listen to Dr. Jobes for two hours, for free, and get CEUs? Not often, I suspect.
In related news, I just got an email from the Association for Humanistic Counseling about an upcoming all-day conference on Strengths-Based Suicide Assessment and Treatment (with me presenting!). The date is: 9.24.21. This one has a small fee for CEUs . . . but it’s cheaper if you become an AHC member. Here’s the registration link for that one: https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eibjc7x5afb40bd4&oseq=&c=&ch=
Have a great evening and I hope to “see” you tomorrow at the Montana conference.
Good morning! The 2021 MHA Suicide Summit has started (see below) and I’ll be up in less than an hour.
Sometimes I think the hardest part about doing workshops is writing the workshop blurb. My problem-and maybe it’s just my problem—is that the process of writing workshop blurbs nearly always impairs my judgment. I start out writing like a sensible and rational person, but eventually I decompensate into displaying delusions of grandeur. For the Mental Health Academy Suicide Summit, I completely lost touch with reality and claimed that I would,
Describe strengths-based principles for suicide assessment and treatment
Be able to implement three strengths-based assessment tools (and recognize the limits of risk and protective factor assessment)
Identify suicide drivers (and goals) linked to seven common life dimensions
Describe at least one wellness and mood management positive psychology strategy for patients and practitioners.
Of course, all of this is great, but, here’s the catch. I’m only presenting for 45 minutes!
If anyone out there can help me become more realistic, I would appreciate the input.
In the meantime, here are the ppts for the presentation today.
In this post I’m sharing a link to an article I just had published in Psychotherapy Networker. Although I had hoped it would be the Networker’s “lead article,” instead, they put Shankar Vedantam first? And then a bunch of other people, like David Burns and Martha Manning? Seriously? All jokes aside, the truth is, I’m humbled to be included.
The article—titled “The Myth of Infallibility”—is about my immediate and ongoing emotional reactions to the loss of a client to suicide. I hope the article provides useful information and emotional support for counselors and psychotherapists who have experienced—or will experience—a similar loss.
You can use the following link to bypass the paywall and read the article for free.
Thanks for reading this. Please share the link if you feel so moved. One of my counseling colleagues shared it with all her students, which seemed great to me, mostly because IMHO, we don’t talk much or get formal training on how to cope when or if we have a client who dies by suicide.
Today, I’m especially grateful for all the people in my life who have supported me in one way or another, over so many years.
This Friday, July 16, Rita and I are doing a professional video shoot in Billings, MT. Due to some minor scheduling changes, we suddenly have openings for two last minute volunteers, who are willing to talk about personal issues in the role of clients. Below, I’ve written a short description of what we need. If you happen to be an open-minded person interested in a little psychological discovery, read on . . . .
John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan, authors of Clinical Interviewing, Tough Kids, Cool Counseling, and other professional books, are doing a video shoot on Friday, July 16. The video content will be used for educational purposes, primarily to accompany textbooks and for training mental health professionals. John and Rita have openings for volunteers to participate in two demonstrations in the afternoon of July 16. Each demonstration will involve about 30 min of on-camera time, with additional time for prepping and debriefing. Volunteers will be paid a one-time stipend of $100. A description of the two demonstrations follow:
John will engage a volunteer in a brief (single-session) nightmare treatment. The volunteer should have a real problem with nightmares. The therapeutic demonstration will focus on coping with nightmares and changing or reducing their frequency and intensity.
Rita will demonstrate how current emotions are linked or related to past emotions. The volunteer should have experience with some problematic emotions in their present-life and be willing to explore past connections to current distressing emotions. Anger, sadness, and anxiety are three emotions that work well for this demonstration.
Volunteers should be open and interested in exploring psychological issues. Potential volunteers (we only need two!) should contact John Sommers-Flanagan ASAP at john.sf@mso.umt.edu
By embracing a holistic, strengths-based and wellness orientation in their work with clients who may be suicidal, counselors can improve on traditional approaches to suicide assessment and treatment
By John and Rita Sommers-Flanagan
When the word “suicide” comes up during counseling sessions, it usually triggers clinician anxiety. You might begin having thoughts such as, “What should I ask next? How can I best evaluate my client’s suicide risk? Should I do a formal suicide assessment, or should I be less direct?” In addition, you might worry about possible hospitalization and how to make the session therapeutic while also assessing risk.
Suicide-related scenarios are stressful and emotionally activating for all mental health, school and health care professionals. Counselors are no exception. But counselors bring a different orientation into the room. As a discipline, counseling is less steeped in the medical model, more oriented toward wellness, and more relational throughout the assessment and intervention processes. In this article, we explore how professional counselors can meet practice standards for suicide assessment and treatment while also embracing a holistic, strengths-based and wellness orientation.
Moving beyond traditional views of suicide
Suicide and suicidality have long been linked to negative judgments. Sometimes suicide — or even thinking about suicide — has been characterized as sinful or immoral. In many societies, suicide was historically deigned illegal, and it remains so in some countries today. In the past, suicidality was nearly always pathologized, and that largely remains the case now. Defining suicide and suicidal thoughts as immoral, illegal or as an illness is an alienating and judgmental social construction that makes people less likely to openly discuss these thoughts and feelings. Most people experiencing suicidality already feel bad about themselves;socially sanctioned negative judgments can cause further harm.
Our position is that suicide is neither a moral failure nor evidence of so-called mental illness. Instead, consistent with a strengths-based perspective, we believe that suicidal ideation is a normal variation on human experience. Suicidal ideation usually stems from difficult environmental circumstances, social disconnection or excruciating emotional pain. Improving life circumstances, enhancing social connection and reducing emotional pain are usually the best means for reducing the frequency and intensity of suicidal thoughts and feelings.
Practitioners trained in the medical model tend to diagnose people who are suicidal with some variant of depressive disorder and provide treatments that target suicidality. Sometimes treatments are applied without patient consent. Health care providers are usually considered authority figures who know what’s best for their patients.
In contrast to the medical model, a strengths-based perspective includes several empowering assumptions:
• When painful psychological distress escalates, strengths-based counselors view the emergence of suicidal ideation as a normal and natural human response. Suicidal ideation is a reaction to life circumstances and may represent a method for coping with relentless psychological pain.
• Because suicidal ideation is viewed as a normal response to psychological pain, client disclosures of suicidality are framed as expressions of distress, rather than evidence of illness. Consequently, if clients disclose suicidality, counselors don’t react with fear and judgment, but instead welcome suicide-related disclosures. Strengths-based counselors recognize that when clients openly share suicidal thoughts, they are showing trust, thus creating opportunities for interpersonal and emotional connection.
• Many people who are suicidal want to preserve their right to die by suicide. If they feel judged by health care or school professionals and coerced to receive treatment, they may shut down and resist. Instead of insisting that clients and students “need treatment,” strengths-based counselors recognize that clients are the best experts on their own lived experiences. Strengths-based counselors provide empathic, collaborative assessment and treatment when clients and students who are suicidal.
• Instead of relying on mental health diagnoses or asking symptom-based questions from a standard form such as the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, strengths-based counselors weave in assessment questions and observations pertaining to client strengths, hope and coping resources. Using principles of solution-focused counseling and positive psychology, strengths-based counselors balance symptom questions with wellness-oriented content.
We believe these preceding assumptions can be woven into counseling in ways that improve traditional suicide assessment and treatment approaches. In fact, over the past two decades, evidence-based treatments for suicide, such as collaborative assessment and management of suicide, have increasingly emphasized empathy, normalization of suicidality and counselor-client collaboration. An objectivist philosophy and medical attitude is no longer required to work with clients or students who are suicidal. Newer approaches, including the strengths-based approach discussed here, flow from postmodern, social constructionist philosophy in which conversation and collaboration are fundamental to decreasing distress and increasing hope.
A holistic approach
When clients disclose suicidal ideation, it’s not unusual for counselors to overfocus on assessment. In reaction to suicidality, counselors may begin asking too many closed questions about the presence or absence of suicide risk and protective factors. This shift away from an empathic focus on what’s hurting and toward analytic assessment protocols is unwarranted for two primary reasons. First, based on a meta-analysis of 50 years of risk and protective factors studies, a research group from Vanderbilt, Harvard and Columbia universities concluded that no factors provide much statistical advantage over chance suicide predictions. In other words, even if mental health or school professionals conduct an extensive assessment of client risk and protective factors, that assessment is unlikely to offer clinical or predictive value. Second, focusing too much on suicide risk assessment usually detracts from important relationship-building interactions that are necessary for positive counseling outcomes.
Instead of overemphasizing risk factor assessment, counselors should identify client distress and respond empathically. Recognizing and responding supportively to emotional pain and distress will help individualize your understanding of the client’s unique risk and protective factors. From a practical perspective, rather than using a generic risk factor checklist, counselors are better off directly asking clients questions such as, “What’s happening that makes you feel suicidal?” and “What one thing, if it changed, would take away your suicidal feelings?”
Additionally, as strengths-based practitioners, we should be scanning for, identifying and providing clients feedback on their unique positive qualities. Statements such as “Thank you so much for being brave enough to tell me about your suicidal thoughts” communicate acceptance and a reflection of client strengths. Although counselors may work in settings that use traditional suicide risk assessment protocols, they can still complement that procedure with a more holistic, positive and interpersonally supportive assessment and treatment planning process.
To help counselors tend to the whole person — instead of overfocusing on suicidality — we recommend using a dimensional assessment and treatment model. Our particular dimensional model tracks and organizes client distress into seven categories. Here, we describe each dimension, offer examples of how distress manifests differently within each dimension, and identify evidence-based or theoretically robust interventions that address dimension-specific distress.
The emotional dimension: Clients who are suicidal often experience agonizing levels of sadness, anxiety, guilt, shame, anger and other painful emotions. Other times, clients feel numb or emotionally drained. Focusing on and showing empathy for core emotional distress or numbness is foundational to working with these clients. Clients also may experience emotional dysregulation. Interventions to address emotional issues in counseling include traditional cognitive behavioral therapies for depression and anxiety, existential exploration of the meaning of emotions, and dialectical behavior therapy to aid clients in emotional regulation skill development.
The cognitive dimension: Humans often react to emotional pain with maladaptive cognitions that further increase their distress. Hopelessness, problem-solving impairments and core negative beliefs are linked to suicide. Depending upon each client’s unique cognitive symptoms and distress, strengths-based counselors will begin by responding with empathy and then, if needed, work with hopelessness in the here and now as it emerges in session. Counselors also may initiate problem-solving strategies, emphasize solution-focused exceptions and teach clients how to notice, track and modify maladaptive thoughts.
The interpersonal dimension: Substantial research points to social and interpersonal difficulties as factors that drive people toward suicide. Common interpersonal themes that trigger suicidal distress include social disconnection, interpersonal grief and loss, social skills deficits, and repetitive dysfunctional relationship patterns. Interventions in the interpersonal dimension include couple or family counseling, grief counseling, social skills training, and other strategies for enhancing social and romantic relationships.
The physical dimension: Physical symptoms trigger and exacerbate suicidal states. Common physical symptoms linked to suicide include agitation/arousal, physical illness, physical symptoms related to trauma, and insomnia. Using a strengths-based model, counselors can collaboratively develop treatment plans that directly address physical symptoms. Specific interventions include physical exercise, evidence-based trauma treatments, and cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia.
The cultural-spiritual dimension: Cultural practices and beliefs alleviate or contribute to client distress and suicidality. Religion, spirituality and a sense of purpose or meaning (or a lack thereof) powerfully mediate suicidality. Specific cultural-spiritual themes that trigger distress include disconnection from a community, higher power or faith system. A sense of meaninglessness or acculturative distress may also be present. Strengths-oriented counselors explore the cultural-spiritual and existential issues present in clients’ lives and develop individualized approaches to addressing these deeply personal sources of distress and potential sources of support or relief.
The behavioral dimension: Clients and students sometimes engage in specific behaviors that increase suicide risk. These may include alcohol/drug use, impulsivity and repeated self-injury. Having easy access to guns or other lethal means is another factor that increases risk. Helping clients recognize destructive behavior patterns, develop alternative coping behaviors and decrease their access to lethal means can be central to a holistic treatment plan. Additionally, collaborative safety planning is an evidence-based suicide intervention that focuses on positive coping behaviors.
Contextual dimension: Many larger contextual, environmental or situational factors contribute to distress in the other six dimensions and thus heighten suicidality. These factors include poverty, neighborhood or relationship safety, racism, sexual harassment and unemployment. Helping clients recognize and change contextual life factors — if they have control over those factors — can be very empowering. Clients also need support coping with uncontrollable stressors. Developing an action plan and discerning when to use mindful acceptance may be an important part of the counseling process. Advocacy can be particularly useful for supporting clients as they face systemic barriers and oppression.
Suicide competencies
Regardless of theoretical orientation or professional discipline, mental health and school professionals must meet or exceed foundational competency standards. In this article, we recommend integrating strengths-based principles, holistic assessment and treatment planning, and wellness activities into your work with individuals who are suicidal. Our recommendation isn’t intended to completely replace traditional suicide-related practices, but rather to add strengths-based skills and holistic case formulation to your counseling repertoire.
When adding a strengths-based perspective into your counseling repertoire, it is critical to remain cognizant of the usual and customary professional standards for working with suicide. The American Counseling Association’s current ethics code doesn’t provide specific guidance for suicide assessment and treatment. However, suicide-related competencies are available in the professional literature. For example, Robert Cramer of the University of North Carolina Charlotte distilled 10 essential suicide competencies from several different health care and mental health publications, including guidelines from the American Association of Suicidology.
Cramer’s 10 suicide competencies are listed below, along with short statements describing how strengths-based counselors can address each competency.
1) Be aware of and manage your attitude and reactions to suicide. Strengths-based counselors strive for individual, cultural, interpersonal and spiritual self-awareness. Self-care also helps counselors stay balanced in their emotional responses to clients who are suicidal.
2) Develop and maintain a collaborative, empathic stance with clients. Strengths-based counselors are relational, collaborative and empathic, while also consistently orienting toward clients’ strengths and resources.
3) Know and elicit evidence-based risk and protective factors. Strengths-based counselors understand how to individualize risk and protective factors to fit each client’s unique risk and protective dynamics.
4) Focus on the current plan and intent of suicidal ideation. Strengths-based counselors not only explore client plans and intentions but also actively engage in conversations about alternatives to suicide plans and ask clients about individual factors that reduce intent.
5) Determine the level of risk. Strengths-based counselors engage clients to obtain information about self-perceived risk and collaborate with clients to better understand factors that increase or decrease individual risk.
6) Develop and enact a collaborative evidence-based treatment plan. Strengths-based counselors engage clients in establishing an individualized safety plan that includes positive coping behaviors and collaboratively develop holistic treatment plans that address emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, cultural-spiritual, physical, behavioral and contextual life dimensions.
7) Notify and involve other people. Strengths-based counselors recognize the core importance of interpersonal connection to suicide prevention and involve significant others for safety and treatment purposes.
8) Document risk assessment, the treatment plan and the rationale for clinical decisions. Strengths-based counselors follow accepted practices for documenting their assessment, treatment and decision-making protocols.
9) Know the law concerning suicide. Strengths-based counselors are aware of local and national ethical and legal considerations when working with clients who are suicidal.
10) Engage in debriefing and self-care. Strengths-based counselors regularly consult with colleagues and supervisors and engage in suicide postvention as needed.
The strengths-based approach in action
Liam was a 20-year-old cisgender, heterosexual male with a biracial (white and Latino) cultural identity. At the time of the referral, Liam had just started a vocational training program in the diesel mechanics trade through a local community college. He was referred to counseling by his trade instructor. About a week previously, Liam had experienced a relationship breakup. Subsequently, he punched a wall while in class (breaking one of his fingers), talked about killing himself, threatened his former girlfriend’s new boyfriend, and impulsively walked off the job at his internship placement.
Liam started his first session by bragging about punching the wall. He stated, “I don’t need counseling. I know how to take care of myself.”
Rather than countering Liam’s opening comments, the counselor maintained a positive and accepting stance, saying, “You might be right. Counseling isn’t for everyone. You look like you’re quite good at taking care of yourself.”
Liam shrugged and asked, “What am I supposed to talk about in here anyway?”
Many clients who are feeling suicidal immediately begin talking about their distress. Others, like Liam, deny suicidality. When clients lead with distress, the counselor’s first task is to empathically explore the distress and highlight unique factors in the client’s life that trigger suicidal thoughts and impulses. In contrast, with Liam, the counselor mirrored Liam’s opening attitude, accepted Liam’s explanation and explicitly focused on Liam’s strengths: his employment goals, his initiative to start vocational training immediately after graduating high school, his ability to care deeply for others (such as his ex-girlfriend), and his pride at being physically fit.
After about 15 minutes, the conversation shifted to how Liam made decisions in his life. Instead of questioning Liam’s judgment, the counselor continued a positive focus, saying, “As I think about your situation, in some ways, hitting the wall was a good idea. It’s definitely better than hitting a person.” The counselor then added, “I don’t blame you for being pissed off about breaking up. Nobody likes a breakup.”
The counselor asked Liam to tell the story of his relationship and the events leading to the breakup. Liam was able to talk about his sense of betrayal and loneliness and his underlying worries that he’d never accomplish anything in life. He admitted to occasional thoughts of “doing something stupid, like offing myself.” He agreed to continue with counseling, mostly because it would look good to his vocational training instructor. Before the session ended, the counselor explained that counselors always need to do a thing called “a safety plan.” During safety planning, Liam admitted to owning two firearms, and even though he “didn’t need to,” he agreed to store his guns at his mom’s house for the next month.
After the first session, the counselor documented the assessment, the intervention and Liam’s treatment plan. The counselor’s documentation included problems and strengths, organized with the holistic dimensional model:
1) Emotional: Liam experienced acute emotional distress and emerging suicidal ideation related to a relationship breakup. Although he minimized his distress, Liam also was able to articulate feelings of betrayal and loneliness.
2) Cognitive: Liam felt hopeless about finding another girlfriend. He was somewhat evasive when asked about suicidal ideation. Eventually, he acknowledged thinking about it and that if he ever decided to die (which he said he “wouldn’t”), he would shoot himself. Liam was able to participate in problem-solving during the session.
3) Interpersonal: Although Liam was distressed about the breakup of his romantic relationship, he agreed to consult with his counselor about relationships during future sessions. He collaboratively brainstormed positive and supportive people to contact in case he began feeling lonely or suicidal. Liam reported a positive relationship with his mother.
4) Physical: Liam reported difficulty sleeping. He said, “I’ve been drinking more than I need to.” During safety planning, Liam agreed to specific steps for dealing with his insomnia and alcohol consumption. Liam was in good physical shape and was invested in his physical well-being.
5) Cultural-spiritual: Liam said that “it won’t hurt me any” to attend church with his mom on Sundays. He reported a good relationship with his mother. He said that going to church with her was something she enjoyed and something he felt good about.
6) Behavioral: Liam contributed to writing up his safety plan. He agreed to follow the plan and take good care of himself over the coming week. Liam identified specific behavioral alternatives to drinking alcohol and suicidal actions. He agreed to store his firearms at his mother’s home.
7) Contextual: Other than high unemployment rates in his community, Liam didn’t report problems in the contextual dimension. He said that he currently had an apartment and believed he had a good employment future.
Concluding comments
A holistic, strengths-based and wellness-oriented model for working with clients and students who are suicidal is a good fit for the counseling profession. In tandem with knowledge and expertise in traditional suicide assessment and treatments, the strengths-based model provides a foundation for suicide assessment and treatment planning. A detailed description of the strengths-based model is available in our book, Suicide Assessment and Treatment Planning: A Strengths-Based Approach, which was published earlier this year by the American Counseling Association.
BIO BOX
John Sommers-Flanagan is professor of counseling at the University of Montana with over 100 professional publications, including Clinical Interviewing, Suicide Assessment and Treatment Planning, and seven other books coauthored with Rita. You can contact him via email (john.sf@mso.umt.edu) or through his blog, where you can also access free counseling-related resources (https://johnsommersflanagan.com/)
Rita Sommers-Flanagan is professor emerita of counseling at the University of Montana. After retiring, Rita has shifted her interests toward suicide prevention, positive psychology, creative writing and passive solar design. She blogs at: https://godcomesby.com/author/ritasf13/ and her email address is rita.sf@mso.umt.edu.
Counseling Today reviews unsolicited articles written by American Counseling Association members. To access writing guidelines and tips for having an article accepted for publication, visit ct.counseling.org/feedback.
For those of you interested in gathering FREE professional continuing education hours AND because I’m terrible at updating my blog upcoming events calendar, here’s a quick preview of two talks I’m giving later this month.
On Saturday, July 24, I’ll be doing an hour-long live, online presentation and Q & A for the Mental Health Academy’s 2021 Suicide Prevention Summit. The cool thing (among many cool things) about this summit is that it’s completely free. . . and you can get up to 10 CEUs. You can tune in live, or register and then watch recorded versions of the presentations (that’s what I did last year and getting my 10 CEUs was smooth as butter). You can learn more about the event and how to register here: https://www.mentalhealthacademy.net/suicideprevention/aas
On Friday, July 30, I’m providing a short (30 minute) presentation on the Montana Happiness Project and strengths-based approaches, and then participating on a panel for the 9th Annual Montana Conference on Suicide Prevention. As with the Mental Health Academy Summit, this event is free, although you must register in advance. For information on speakers, registration, and the conference schedule, click on this link: https://www.montanacosp.org/
Let me know if you have questions and I hope you’re staying as safe and as cool as you can . . .
Dan Salois is teaching an abbreviated version of the Montana Happiness Class this summer. The course starts in ONE WEEK!
Dan is a doctoral student in the Department of Counseling and a great instructor. The course is noncredit, offered through our campus continuing education unit, and all online . . . so you can get a boost of happiness from the convenience of home.
Here’s the course description:
Over the past 20 years, research on happiness has flourished. Due to the natural interest that most Americans have for happiness, research findings (and unfounded rumors) have been distributed worldwide. Every day, happiness is promoted via online blogs, newspaper and magazine articles, Twitter posts, Instagram videos, TikTok, and through many other media and social media venues. Ironically, instead of increases in national happiness, most epidemiological research indicates that all across the U.S., children, adolescents, adults, and seniors are experiencing less happiness, more depression, and higher suicide rates. To help sort out scientific reality from unsubstantiated rumors, in this course, we will describe, discuss, and experience the art and science of happiness. We will define happiness, do some short readings, try out research experiments in class, engage in happiness lab assignments, and measure our own happiness and well-being. Overall, we will focus on how happiness and well-being are manifest in the physical, cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, spiritual/cultural, behavioral, and contextual dimensions of our lives.
The course meets online July 12 – 30, Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. Course fee is $90, which translates to about $10 per instructional hour. . . and a pretty good deal for a dose of happiness.
