Suicide: Identification, Intervention and Prevention Skills Every Clinician Needs

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Rita Schulte, LPC Related seminars and products

---

Rita Schulte is a licensed professional board-certified counselor. She received her B.S. in psychology and a master's degree in counseling from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Rita has a private practice in Fairfax where she specializes in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety/depressive disorders, as well as grief, loss, and trauma. In April 2011, she launched Heartline Podcast where she talks with top leaders in the Christian counseling and literary world about cutting edge issues affecting the hearts and lives of people today. She also airs a 1-minute devotional spot Consider This coming to KLZ radio this fall. She is the author of several books: Shattered: Finding Hope and Healing through the losses of Life, Imposter, Think This not That and forthcoming in 2021, Surviving Suicide Loss: Making Your Way Beyond the Ruins (Moody Publishers). Rita is a speaker for PESI, ACA, AACC, and many other organizations.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Rita Schulte receives royalties as a published author. She receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Rita Schulte is a member of the American Association of Christian Counselor's and the American Counseling Association.

Objectives

1. Assess clients for drivers of suicidal ideation.
2. Specify what steps clinicians should take in cases of imminent suicidality.
3. Analyze 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. Utilize strategies from Narrative Therapy that 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