#Inside the mind of a suicidal person professional#

In this Australian study (N=437 response rate=29%), incidence of client suicide and a wider spectrum of suicidal behaviour was examined. This is surprising given survey findings of the high proportion of psychologists who have seen clients with suicidal ideation and behaviour. Only one Australian paper exists on psychologist experiences of client suicide and/or treatment of suicidal behaviour (Trimble, Jackson & Harvey, 2000). Psychologists’ experience of suicidal clients The aim of this article is to shed some light on the difficulties of this area of practice, as well to suggest ways for psychologists to deal with and respond to such challenges. The impacts of such work can be stressful and even devastating for the therapist, yet formal education about suicide and coping with fatal and non-fatal suicidal behaviour is almost non-existent in psychology programs despite the identified need for such training. Nevertheless, and in spite of the long-standing recognition that existential despair will lead some individuals to suicide despite therapists’ best efforts, therapist self-questioning and self-doubt is common following a client suicide or attempt. Some therapists may also perceive themselves as ‘omnipotent’ based on the (subjective, less informed) belief that they must save and rescue each suicidal client at all costs (James, 2005). Coupled with the unspoken ‘silence’ of losing a client to suicide within the profession, is the proposition by Valente (1994) that lack of attention to the support needs of therapists may be a result of the view of therapists having “superior, even superhuman capacity for coping” (p.619). Therapists are often not well prepared for the loss of a client to suicide despite the repeated identification in the literature of client suicide as an ‘occupational hazard’ for the psychologist.

#Inside the mind of a suicidal person professional#

This is surprising given that studies have shown 25-75 per cent of individuals who suicide have had some contact with a health professional or mental health services in the year before death. A particular ‘blame and shame’ stigma historically attributed to the therapist of the deceased client, originated from both the surviving family members, as well as from within the mental health profession itself (Weiner, 2005).Īlthough today suicide of a client is more acknowledged as a traumatic experience for the therapist, this phenomenon is still very much avoided, underestimated and tabooed in the literature. Perhaps this is another dimension of the stigma, which extends beyond that attributed to the suicidal person and survivors of suicide, to the mental-health worker, whose client is lost to suicide (or a suicide attempt). Far too often, the distressing impact and personal challenges associated with this field area of practice are ignored or certainly not discussed. For many years following, the suicide of a psychiatric patient was seen as the 'therapist’s failure'. ‘You cannot wipe the tears off another’s face without getting your own hands wet.’ - Zulu proverbĪs early as the late 1890s, Sigmund Freud reported his own suppression of feelings after his patient's suicide.