09:00 - 10:30

The therapist-client connection is a vital part of treatment. But when working with suicidal clients, it can be extremely difficult to manage, and if approached incorrectly, can be detrimental to your client's life.

Dr Andrew Reeves will share with you the key relational strategies that he has used throughout his career so that you can help your clients through the power of relationality and intervention. You'll guide your clients to explore the intense emotions and behaviours they are experiencing in a safe and controlled manner so that you can move them away from their suicidal thoughts and impulses.

Break: 10:30 - 10:45

10:45 - 12:15

Suicidal and self-harming behaviours have many contributing factors: fractured communities, extreme isolation, imposed expectations of masculinity/femininity and sexual orientation and more. These all lead to our clients feeling “separate” and different from their peers... which can drastically increase the risk of suicide or self-harm.

This session will explore the root causes of suicidality and self-harm and provide treatment solutions that focus on a “bottom-up” approach from modalities such as EMDR, Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), the Feeling State Protocol, the Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM) and Image Transformation Therapy... so that you can discover how to help your clients heal from their pain.

Lunch Break: 12:15 - 13:15

13:15 - 14:45

Traditional approaches to self-harming and addictive behaviours often focus on trying to “control” the client. This can result in power struggles between therapist and client, causing increased stress levels and shameful sensations... often leading them to more of the self-destructive behaviours we're trying to guide them away from.

Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) offers a paradigm shift, where we uncover the positive intentions behind these “negative” behaviours and instead work with the clients in an empowering manner. You'll master safe interventions for high-risk self-harming behaviours that address and heal the underlying trauma that causes them. You'll leave this session with an innovative set of skills and a fresh perspective on people suffering with self-harm, addictive processes and underlying trauma.

Break: 14:45 - 15:00

15:00 - 16:30

Self-harming behaviours can be difficult to understand until you realise that they are often an attempt to communicate trauma as well as cope with its overwhelming pain. Where many approaches can unwittingly shame and pathologize these behaviours with concepts such as safety contracts, this session explores a strengths-based approach to treatment which empowers clients instead.

Using the CARESS model, you will discover how to give clients alternative solutions to self-harming which help them achieve the same results in the short-term without evoking guilt, shame, or further injury to their bodies.

Break: 16:30 - 16:45

16:45 - 17:45

Moderated by Tracy Jarvis, PESI UK Director, this panel discussion will explore the merits and deficiencies behind using safety contracts with our suicidal and self-harming clients. You'll hear our panellists' unique views on the issue shaped by their years of clinical experience and viewed through the lens of their chosen modalities.

There will also be a Q&A section where you'll be able to ask the panellists your own clinical queries!

09:00 - 10:30

Suicidality and self-harm are extremely pressing issues that we must address as a society. But in the black community in particular, instances of suicide and self-harm are very poorly recorded and woefully underexplored.

This session will discuss the absence of understanding around suicide and self-harm in the black community, and how as practitioners we must be better informed on how we can treat persons of colour who are experiencing suicidal ideation and self-harming behaviours.

Break: 10:30 - 10:45

10:45 - 12:15

The adolescent brain is wired to be impulsive - constantly seeking new and rewarding experiences while their logical and reflexive functions are still not fully formed. This impulsivity, coupled with unresolved traumatic childhood experiences and societal pressures faced, results in young and vulnerable people who pose a higher suicide risk.

You'll discover how to get to the origins of what always seems to be the common denominator: shame. You'll see how through joint reflection with our clients, we can trace the life events that are contributing to these shameful feelings and then use the extraordinary power of EMDR to process and heal the traumatic experiences that are putting them at increased risk of suicidal and self-harming behaviours.

Lunch Break: 12:15 - 13:15

13:15 - 14:45

When clients come to us suffering with suicidal ideation and behaviours, we need a research-backed approach that truly delivers. CPT is a proven model that leads to lasting healing, which is why it's endorsed by the U.S. Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies, and the U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Dr Kathleen Chard, co-developer of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), will show you how to approach suicidality from a CPT perspective. You'll get the structured, step-by-step CPT treatment techniques she has refined and perfected over 20+ years of research around PTSD and suicidality so you can apply them in your own practice.

Break: 14:45 - 15:00

15:00 - 16:30

Childhood trauma often leaves survivors with a traumatised nervous system that impairs their capacity to tolerate normal life. They resort to desperate measures for relief: self-harm and suicidal thoughts restore a sense of control over painful emotions. But it is a vicious cycle: the attacks on their own bodies further re-traumatise them and put their lives at risk.

This session will give you a comprehensive understanding of the neurobiology behind self-harm and suicidality. You'll discover new ways to stabilise unsafe behaviours and engage the client in finding other roads to relief... so that therapeutic progress can truly begin.

Break: 16:30 - 16:45

16:45 - 17:45

Moderated by Tracy Jarvis, PESI UK Director, this panel discussion will tackle the question of whether suicidality and self-harming behaviours should be approached initially via cognitively oriented treatments (top-down) or somatically driven and body-based interventions (bottom-up) - or is there a happy medium between the two?

There will also be a Q&A section where you'll be able to ask the panellists your own clinical queries!

That's not all... when you register today, you'll get access to an exclusive FREE bonus session with Dr Andrew Reeves that you can use to kick-start your learning immediately!

INSTANT ACCESS BONUS SESSION: Tight Ropes and Safety Nets: Essential Foundational Skills When Working With Suicide with Dr Andrew Reeves

This bonus session will give you the bare essentials you need to treat suicidal clients, no matter your starting point or level of specialist knowledge. Dr Reeves equips you with the most crucial and effective foundations, strategies and techniques that have proven themselves throughout his practice.

This session acts as a great introduction to watch and absorb before the summit begins and gives you the vital knowledge you need to know to help any suicidal clients before the summit begins.