Tips for helping clients after a suicide attempt

CrossCurrents

Yvonne Bergmans, a suicide intervention consultant at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and Karen Letofsky, executive director of the Distress Centres of Toronto, offer these tips for working with clients who are suicidal or have attempted suicide:

• Hear the person’s story, listen and believe. Do not tell them how they should feel.
  
  
• Be genuine in terms of who you are. “It’s about making a connection and having a rapport with the individual so that when they are speaking, they feel you believe them and that they are not being judged,” says Bergmans.
  
  
• If there is a behavioural component to the person’s expression, take the behaviour as a communicator. “Don’t assume the person is able to or knows how to identify or articulate what is going on for them at the time,” says Bergmans.
  
  
• Avoid the tendency to diagnose the problem as opposed to what the emotional experience of that problem is to an individual. For example, what is the extent of the pain experienced when the problem is divorce?
  
  
• Don’t move into problem-solving mode until there is emotional de-escalation. A client running on emotion does not have the ability to reason, and it may make the situation worse. The best way to emotionally de-escalate a situation is to be present in the moment and validate the client’s feelings.

 

• Print
  Follow us on
  
  Share