A Strengths-Based Approach to Suicide Assessment and Treatment

In this course, Dr. John Sommers-Flanagan, Ph.D., Dept. of Counselling at University of Montana, offers strengths-based principles for working with suicidal clients which de-pathologise suicide disclosures and acknowledge the limits of risk and protective factor assessment. Strengths-based assessment asks the clinician to regard the client as a whole person and draw out their resources and positives in a framework of balanced questioning, while not abandoning the focus on suicide. In collaborating with the client in therapeutic assessment, the clinician starts with empathy and uses a normalising frame which includes nuanced suicide questions and occasional mood scaling. Too, a strengths-based assessment includes alternative positive triggers in evaluating ideation. Sommers-Flanagan uses a framework of seven organising life dimensions to create a summary of suicide drivers, corresponding strengths, and strengths-based treatment suggestions. He includes an example from the emotional dimension and you are treated to a five-minute video clip showing the opening interventions of a strengths-based assessment of a 15-year-old. Seligman’s Three Good Things intervention is suggested as a method of self-care which both clinician and client can use.