Suicide: Identification, Intervention and Prevention Skills Every Clinician Needs

CPD

Handouts

Faculty

Rita Schulte, LPC Related seminars and products: 3

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Rita A. Schulte, LPC specializes in the treatment of depression, suicidality, and grief. Rita is no stranger to loss and suffering, having lost her beloved husband to suicide in 2013. In addition to her private practice, Rita is the creator and host of Heartline Radio where she talks with counselors, authors and everyday people about moving through the difficulties of life. Rita writes for numerous publications and blogs and her articles have appeared in Counseling Today Magazine, Thriving Family, Kyria and LifeHack.org. She is the author of Shattered: Finding Hope and Healing through the Losses of Life (Leafwood, 2013) and her latest book Alongside: A Roadmap for Suicide Survivors and Those Who Love Them is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2021.

 

Speaker Disclosure:

Financial: Rita Schulte is in private practice. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.

Non-financial: Rita Schulte is a member of the American Counseling Association; and the National Board of Certified Counselors.

Additional Info

Program Information

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Objectives

1. Assess clients for drivers of suicidal ideation.
2. Specify what steps clinicians should take in cases of imminent suicidality.
3. Characterize how stigma can feed shame, guilt and suicidal ideation.
4. Communicate how clinicians can build emotional regulation and problem solving skills in suicidal clients.
5. Establish how strategies from Narrative Therapy can help clients manage negative past experiences that can contribute to suicidal thoughts.
6. Articulate how exercises that help clients manage anger and tolerate uncertainty can add stability to the lives of clients with suicidal thoughts.

Outline

How to Assess for Suicidal Risk

• Loss and loneliness as drivers of suicidal ideation
• How trauma contributes to suicide
• Tools to assess toxic self-talk
• Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CMS)
• What to do when suicide is imminent

Guilt, Shame, Stigma and Suicidality

• How shame and guilt take clients to dark places
• How stigma feeds shame and the cycle of pain
• Resolve inner conflict and pervasive shame with Parts Work
• Meaning making interventions

Crisis Intervention Treatment Techniques: Essential Skills from CBT, DBT and Somatic Approaches

• Suicide risk as a skills deficit problem
• CBT skills to enhance emotional regulation and problem solving
• DBT techniques that directly target suicidal behaviour
• Mindfulness and breathing techniques to bring calm
• Grounding exercises to interrupt suicidal impulses
• Containment skills for overwhelming thoughts

Make Suicidal Clients Feel Heard, Seen, and Understood

• Narrative Therapy Strategies, story and metaphor
• Loss timelines to release past negative experiences
• Therapeutic letter writing
• Linking Objects to handle emotional memories
• Let go of adverse life imprints

Suicide and Existential Shattering: Move Clients from “Do I Want to Live?” to “How Do I Want to Live?”

• How belief systems keep clients stuck
• Assumptions after a life shattering event
• Strategies to help clients tolerate uncertainty
• Shattered Vase exercises to restore hope
• Exercises to manage anger, unforgiveness and thoughts of revenge
  • Certificate of Debt
  • Rock exercise
• Reinvest in a Life Worth Living

Target Audience

• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Counselors
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Case Managers
• Addiction Counselors
• Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals
• School-Based Counselors
• School-Based Psychologists
• School-Based Social Workers
• School Administrators