Last week I shared my 2025 predictions with you. This week, I’ve got another prediction . On Friday, January 10, I’ll be doing an online, two-hour workshop (title listed above) for the Cognitive Behavior Institute. I predict that if you sign up, you’ll be happy you did.
The other good news about this workshop is that it’s ALMOST FREE. Only $25. Here’s the link to register:
If you’re interested in this topic and can’t make it (or even if you can make it), here’s a pdf of an article I wrote about suicide assessment for a Psych journal in 2018:
Tomorrow, December 4, I’m doing a quick one-hour version of my “Integration” workshop. Obviously, my leaning is toward the strengths-based, constructive approach to suicide assessment and treatment, but sometimes we need to integrate strengths-based approaches with the traditional medical model. That’s what this workshop is all about.
The workshop is presented on behalf of the Professional Counseling Association of Montana — the brainchild of Cynthia Boyle, a Ph.D. student in the University of Montana’s counseling and supervision program. Here’s a link to their website: https://pcamontana.org/
In case you’re attending . . . or interested . . . here are the slides:
[I love the preceding photo because I’m doing a workshop on suicide in Billings, Montana, and despite the content, the participants are clearly having a good time]
Sometimes people ask me if I have presentations coming up. Other times they ask me about recent presentations. For reasons related to my own inability to be more organized and behave responsibly, I haven’t been very good at inserting “upcoming events” into my schedule, or at sharing links with readers about recent content that’s available online. Today’s post is my effort to address my irresponsibility.
September 11, 2024 – JSF presented a day-long ONLINE workshop, Conducting Parenting Consultations on behalf of Families First. Missoula, MT. Here are the ppts for the Parenting Consultation workshop:
September 26, 2024 – JSF presented a day-long IN-PERSON workshop, Tough Kids, Cool Counseling on behalf of Families First. Missoula, MT.
October 10, 2024 – JSF presented a day-long IN-PERSON workshop, Strengths-Based Suicide Assessment and Treatment on behalf of Tribal Health, Ronan, MT.
October 24, 2024 – JSF did an on-air guest interview on Evidence-Based Happiness for Teachers on a South Korean radio station. https://youtu.be/xYdJOInpAkE
November 6, 2024 – JSF presented on Let’s Pursue Happiness . . . Together (with our children) to the Washington Middle School Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
November 7, 2024 – JSF presented IN-PERSON on Why We Should Be in Pursuit of Eudaimonia (Not “Happiness”) for the University of Montana Alumni Association. Missoula, MT.
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS
November 13 – JSF is presenting Let’s Pursue Happiness Together [In our schools . . . with our teachers . . . and for our children]ONLINE to the Montana Office of Public Instruction Montana Student Wellness Advisory Committee.
November 14 – JSF is presenting Happiness and You: Methods for Managing Your MoodsIN PERSON at the annual statewide Future Farmers of America (FFA) conference at MSU in Bozeman, MT.
December 4 – JSF is presenting a one-hour workshop on Strengths-Based Integrating Strengths-Based and Traditional (Medical Model) Approaches to Suicide AssessmentONLINE to the Professional Counseling Association of Montana. Link unavailable for now.
December 6 John Sommers-Flanagan is presenting an all-day ONLINE workshop for mental health professionals titled, Tough Kids, Cool Counseling, on behalf of the Vermont Psychological Association. Info is here: https://twinstates.ce21.com/speaker/john-sommersflanagan-2295709
January 10 – JSF is doing a 2-hour ONLINE workshop titled, Strategies for Integrating Traditional and Strengths-Based Approaches to Suicide, through the Cognitive Behavior Institute. You can register here for $25.00: https://www.pathlms.com/cbi/courses/77936#
It can be good to have an IOU. I knew I owed my former student and current colleague, Maegan Rides At The Door, a chance to publish something together. We had started working on a project several years ago, but I got busy and dropped the ball. For years, that has nagged away at me. And so, when I read an article in the American Psychologist about suicide assessment with youth of color, I remembered my IOU, and reached out to Maegan.
The article, written by a very large team of fancy researchers and academics, was really quite good. But, IMHO, they neglected to humanize the assessment process. As a consequence, Maegan and I prepared a commentary on their article that would emphasize the relational pieces of the assessment process that the authors had missed. Much to our good fortune, after one revision, the manuscript was accepted.
I saw Maegan yesterday as she was getting the President Royce Engstrom Endowed Prize in University Citizenship award (yes, she’s just getting awards all the time). She said, with her usual infectious smile, “You know, I re-read our article this morning and it’s really good!”
I am incredibly happy that Maegan felt good about our published article. I also re-read the article, and felt similar waves of good feelings—good feelings about the fact that we were able to push forward an important message about working with youth of color. Because I know I now have your curiosity at a feverish pitch, here’s our closing paragraph:
In conclusion, to improve suicide assessment protocols for youth of color, providers should embrace anti-racist practices, behave with cultural humility, value transparency, and integrate relational skills into the assessment process. This includes awareness, knowledge, and skills related to cultural attitudes consistent with local, communal, tribal, and familial values. Molock and colleagues (2023) addressed most of these issues very well. Our main point is that when psychologists conduct suicide assessments, relational factors and empathic attunement should be central. Overreliance on standardized assessments—even instruments that have been culturally adapted—will not suffice.
And here’s the Abstract:
Molock and colleagues (2023) offered an excellent scholarly review and critique of suicide assessment tools with youth of color. Although providing useful information, their article neglected essential relational components of suicide assessment, implied that contemporary suicide assessment practices are effective with White youth, and did not acknowledge the racist origins of acculturation. To improve suicide assessment process, psychologists and other mental health providers should emphasize respect and empathy, show cultural humility, and seek to establish trust before expecting openness and honesty from youth of color. Additionally, the fact that suicide assessment with youth who identify as White is also generally unhelpful, makes emphasizing relationship and development of a working alliance with all youth even more important. Finally, acculturation has racist origins and is a one-directional concept based on prevailing cultural standards; relying on acculturation during assessments with youth of color should be avoided.
And finally, if you’re feeling inspired for even more, here’s the whole Damn commentary:
Tomorrow morning, three counseling interns and I will hit the road for Ronan, where we’ll spend the day with the staff of CSKT Tribal Health. We are honored and humbled to engage in a conversation about how to make the usual medical model approach to suicide be more culturally sensitive and explicitly collaborative.
Tomorrow morning (Wednesday, October 2) I have the honor and privilege of being the keynote speaker for Maryland’s 36th Annual Suicide Prevention Conference. So far, everyone I’ve met associated with this conference is amazing. I suspect tomorrow will be filled with excellent presentations and fabulous people who are in the business of mental health and saving lives.
I hope I can do justice to my role in this very cool conference.
Why Do We Need a Strengths-Based Approach to Suicide Assessment and Treatment?
Imagine this: You’re living in a world that seems like it would just as soon forget you exist. Maybe your skin color is different than the dominant people who hold power. Maybe you have a disability. Whatever the case, the message you hear from the culture is that you’re not important and not worthy. You feel oppressed, marginalized, unsupported, and as if much of society would just as soon have you become invisible or go away.
In response, you intermittently feel depressed and suicidal. Then, when you enter the office of a health or mental health professional, the professional asks you about depression and suicide. Even if the professional is well-intended, judgment leaks through. If you admit to feeling depressed and having suicidal thoughts, you’ll get a diagnosis that implies you’re to blame for having depressing and suicidal thoughts.
The medical model overfocuses on trying to determine: “Are you suicidal?” The medical model is also based on the assumption that the presence of suicidality indicates there’s something seriously wrong with you. But if we’re working with someone who has been or is currently being marginalized, a rational response from the patient might be:
“As it turns out, I’ve internalized systemic and intergenerational racism, sexism, ableism, and other dehumanizing messages from society. I’ve been devalued for so long and so often that now, I’ve internalized societal messages: I devalue myself and wonder if life is worth living. And now, you’re blaming me with a label that implies I’m the problem!”
No wonder most people who are feeling suicidal don’t bother telling their health professionals.
When I think of this preceding scenario, I want to add profanity into my response, so I can adequately convey that it’s completely unjust to BLAME patients for absorbing repeated negative messages about people who look like or sound like or act like them. WTH else do you think should happen?
This is why we need to integrate strengths-based principles into traditional suicide assessment and prevention models. Of course, we shouldn’t use strengths-based ideas in ways that are toxically positive. We ALWAYS need to start by coming alongside and feeling with our patients and clients. As it turns out, if we do a good job of coming alongside patients/clients who are in emotional pain, natural opportunities for focus on strengths and resources, including cultural, racial, sexual, and other identities that give the person meaning.
I’m reminded of an interview I did with an Alaskan Native person from the Yupik tribe. She talked at length about her depression, about feeling like a zombie, and past and current suicidal thoughts. Eventually, I inquired: “What’s happening when you’re not having thoughts about suicide?” She seemed surprised. Then she said, “I’d be singing or writing poetry.” I instantly had a sense that expressing herself held meaning for her. In particular, her singing Native songs and contemporary pop songs became important in our collaborative efforts to build her a safety plan.
This coming Wednesday morning I have the honor of presenting as the keynote speaker for the Maryland Department of Health 36th Annual Suicide Prevention Conference. During this keynote, I’ll share more ideas about why a strengths-based model is a good fit when working with diverse clients who are experiencing suicidal thoughts and impulses.
With all that said, here’s the title and abstract of my upcoming presentation.
Strengths-Based Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention with Diverse Populations
Traditional suicide assessment tends to be a top-down information-gathering process wherein healthcare or prevention professionals use questionnaires and clinical interviews to determine patient or client suicide risk. This approach may not be the best fit for people from populations with historical trauma, or for people who continue to experience oppression or marginalization. In this presentation, John Sommers-Flanagan will review principles of a strengths-based approach to suicide prevention, assessment, and treatment. He will also discuss how to be more sensitive, empowering, collaborative, and how to leverage cultural strengths when working with people who are potentially suicidal. You will learn at least three practical strengths-based strategies for initiating conversations about suicide, conducting culturally-sensitive assessments, and implementing suicide interventions—that you can immediately use in your prevention work.
In the lasting glow of Saturday’s Mental Health Academy’s annual Suicide Prevention Summit, I discovered 33 new blog followers. We had right around 3,000 for the session, and the chat-based posts were overwhelmingly positive and affirming. One person wrote, “You can use these comments to think about 1,000 good things from today.” The comments were THAT GOOD. I am deeply grateful for the positive feedback and amazing support of my work. Thank-you!
This year I’m embarking, along with Dylan Wright of Families First (thanks Dylan!), on something new, and possibly ill-advised. We’re hosting three Montana Happiness Project interns! My thinking was that because I’m growing long of tooth (haha), I need to begin formally passing on my knowledge and skills to the next generation. Of course, as most of you know, I’ve been passing on information and doing supervision for decades, but in this case, the process is somewhat outside of the University of Montana, and will involve a bit more mentoring. You’ll be hearing about this new wave of Montana Happiness stuff off and on in the coming months.
Here’s the first volley.
To get our interns ready, Dylan and I are creating content. I guess that makes us content creators. Cool. One of our first creations is a Step-by-Step Suicide Assessment Guide. I like to give stuff away, and so I’ve included a pdf of the guide here.
This guide is designed to be used flexibly. Mostly, it’s a knowledge-base (complete with some interesting links) that you can use to frame how you do suicide assessment and safety planning. I hope it’s useful to you in your work.
Good Morning or Good Afternoon (wherever you may be),
In 28 minutes I’ll be online presenting for the Mental Health Academy Suicide Prevention Summit. A big thanks to Pedro and Greg for their organizing and broadcasting of this worldwide event. I’m honored to be a part of it.
It’s still not too late to register. The link is here: https://www.mentalhealthacademy.net/suicideprevention. It’s all free . . . or you can pay a whopping $10 and have access to all the recordings. TBH, I’m not sure if I’d pay $10 to hear me (jokes), but tomorrow morning features Craig Bryan, and I’ll be an early-riser to catch him live (and free). There are also some other FABULOUS presenters.
Today, I’m online doing the final webinar in a three-part series for PacificSource. The PacificSource organizers and participants have been fabulous. Everything has worked smoothly and the participants have engaged with many excellent thoughts and questions. We’ve got 503 registered for today.
Here’s the title and description of today’s webinar.
Strengths-Based Approaches to Management of Patient Suicidality
John Sommers-Flanagan, Ph.D.
Healthcare providers need to do more than conduct suicide assessments; they also need to flow from assessment into providing interventions to help patients move out of crisis and toward greater emotional regulation, hope, and health. In this webinar, using video clips and vignettes, you will learn at least five specific assessment and management interventions designed to help facilitate patient transitions from crisis to constructive problem-solving. These interventions are based on robust suicide theory, clinical wisdom, and empirical evidence on strategies for working effectively with patients who are suicidal.
For anyone interested, here are the ppts for today:
John Sommers-Flanagan 