Suicide Assessment and Intervention

Course content available in articles, interviews, and transcripts.

Fulfills requirement: Suicide

This course does NOT include the HIPAA Kit and forms, if you’d like to purchase the course with forms you can do that here.

Suicide occurs at an estimated rate of one every 11 minutes in the United States. The impact of suicide on family, friends, associates, as well as therapists, can be devastating. Treatment of suicidality and efforts at prevention continue to evolve, and yet, too many variables are present to accurately predict who is likely to commit suicide.

This intermediate level course is designed to assist mental health professionals in identifying the major risk factors for suicide and to provide a range of tools that can be used in both the assessment and treatment of suicidal patients. The course consists of four interviews (transcripts provided) and several articles focusing on the assessment and treatment of suicide. All content has audio versions as well. Information is based on current empirical research and known best practices and reflects the need to take a culturally responsive approach to care.

The course is divided into five parts: suicide assessment, treatment and management, suicide among veterans, risk of imminent harm through self-injurious behaviors and lethal means, and self-guided exercises for skills practice. The first section on assessment includes an article and two interviews that cover how to structure an interview to gather information from a client about risk and protective factors and warning signs, how to use this information to understand suicide risk, appropriate actions and referrals for various levels of risk, and how to appropriately document suicide risk assessments.

The second section focuses on suicide treatment and management and includes an article that includes available evidence-based treatments for clients at risk of suicide, strategies for safety planning and monitoring use of the safety plan, engagement of supportive third parties, reducing access to lethal means for clients in crisis, and ensuring continuity of care through transitions, such as discharge and referral. The section concludes with an interview that presents the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) approach.

The third section consists of an interview on suicide among veteran populations. It includes population-specific data, risk and protective factors and intervention strategies. The fourth section contains excerpts from two articles on risk of imminent harm through self-injurious behaviors and lethal means. The course concludes with three self-guided exercises for skills practice in which clinical scenarios are provided with questions targeting what steps therapists can take to de-escalate risks.

Educational Objectives

This course will teach the participant to

Identify risk factors, protective factors, and warning signs for suicide.
Explain how to use assessment information to understand risk and take appropriate actions.
Describe common evidence-based treatments for clients, including psychotherapy, counseling, psychiatric medication, and substance use treatment.
Discuss the specific needs and best practices for veteran populations, a high-risk group for suicide.
Describe how to recognize non-suicidal self-injury and other self-injurious behaviors and assess the intent of self-injury through suicide risk assessments.
Explain how screening for and restricting access to lethal means effectively prevents suicide.

Syllabus

Suicide Assessment

Purpose and limitations of suicide assessments
General issues in conducting suicide assessments
Structuring clinical interviews to gather information about suicide risk
Suicide screenings
More in-depth assessments of warning signs and risk factors
Leveraging protective factors
Sample suicide interview questions
Understanding level of suicide risk based on assessment and taking appropriate action
Documenting suicide risk
Interview with Michael Donner, Ph.D.
Challenges of predicting who will commit suicide
Liability issues for clinicians
Identifying high-risk groups
Limitations and potential risks of suicide contracts
Enlisting supports, taking action, and documenting appropriately
Interview with Brent Potter, Ph.D.
What psychological autopsies reveal about the journey toward suicide
Importance of including substance screening in suicide assessment
Assessing suicide ideation, plan, and imminent danger

Suicide Treatment and Management

Empirically-based treatments for clients at risk of suicide
Continuity of care through transitions
Interview with David Jobes, Ph.D. about the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) approach

- Providers’ attitudes and roles
  - Moving from getting clients to promise what whey won’t do to how to get through darkest moments
  - Importance of genuine exploration of suicidal thinking
- Making assessments part of the intervention
- Applications to military and other traumatized populations
- Going beyond survival to finding meaning and purpose

Assessing and Treating Suicide in Veteran Populations

Appreciating heterogeneity within veteran population
Post-traumatic stress disorder and moral injury
Chronic pain and sleep disorders
Behavioral and pharmacological interventions
Importance and challenges of building rapport
Treating high-risk subpopulations

Imminent Harm through Self-Injurious Behavior and Lethal Means

What do we mean by non-suicidal self-injurious behavior (NSSI)?
How suicidal is NSSI?
Assessment of NSSI
Relationship between availability of suicide means and suicidal behavior
Examples of restricting access to means used for suicide
Challenges to means restriction approaches in suicide prevention

Self-Guided Exercises

SUI603

November 8, 2024

Back to Course Catalog