Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques

In this course, Dr. Stacey Freedenthal, Ph.D., LCSW, Associate Professor, University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work, explains the ambivalence of the suicidal person and offers many tips and strategies for helping them to not only stay in life, but also create a life worth living. Advising you to resist the temptation to persuade or get into a power struggle, Freedenthal instead defines suicide as problem-solving behaviour and shows you how to engage with the client to give them other ways to solve the problem than suicide. She explores reasons for living and how to elicit coping statements within the frameworks of numerous therapies, including CBT, mindfulness, motivational interviewing, and ACT. Formal and informal relapse prevention strategies help reinforce client gains in moving away from suicide.