I am a huge fan of Craig Bryan. He, Sharon Stone, and David Rudd (another person whose work I really admire) have just published an article titled, “A Practical, Evidence-Based Approach for Means-Restriction Counseling With Suicidal Patients.” I know I will be recommending this article a lot. Questions about means restriction come up just about [...]
Read more
Archive by Author
Interesting qualitative study about military mental health professionals on deployment
July 11, 2011
0 Comments
A group of US and UK colleagues have published an interesting qualitative study about the challenges and resiliency of military mental health professionals (MMHPs). They had a small non-representative sample of British MMHPs who had completed a period of deployment in Iraq between 2003-2005. For the study, they participated in detailed interviews about their experiences [...]
Read moreHelping at-risk patients who rarely show up
January 4, 2011
2 Comments
From early on in my quest to understand the unique challenges mental health professionals face in working with patients at risk for suicide, I’ve wondered aloud about the things that make us the most nervous. I’m still working my way through a list of questions I posted based on my notes from a series of [...]
Read morePreparing my presentation for AAS 2010
March 18, 2010
3 Comments
I’m preparing my presentation for the April 2010 American Association of Suicidology annual conference, which will be held in Orlando, Florida. My presentation is titled “Evaluation of Commitment to Living: a brief training to address suicide risk assessment and management.” I’m enjoying the preparations because I’m planning to present entirely using mindmaps on my curriculum which [...]
Read moreNew on the Web: Suicide Prevention News and Comment
January 9, 2009
3 Comments
Franklin Cook has started a suicide prevention news blog that looks very promising. Suicide Prevention News and Comment (SPNAC) is still young– less than a month old–but already has some valuable information and insights. As the site’s name suggests, most of the posts (several each week) are stimulated by news in the suicide prevention [...]
Read moreSpeaking of nomenclature…what about “protective factors”?
October 23, 2008
11 Comments
Speaking of nomenclature, I’m increasingly growing mistrustful of the term “protective factors.” It sounds very “evidence-based” to refer to “risk and protective factors” when discussing one’s approach to risk assessment. However, I’ve noticed a subtle misunderstanding that has creeped in along with the popularity of these terms. Often, it sounds like some clinicians are thinking [...]
Read moreA better term for “high risk”?
October 22, 2008
2 Comments
At a recent workshop I presented, a senior colleague commented that our clinical vernacular needs a more apt phrase than “high risk” to describe individuals whose clinical and historical presentation suggests risk for suicide. “High risk for suicide,” he pointed out, sounds like suicide is probable, when in fact the likelihood of suicide in [...]
Read moreClinical reflections on Army’s approach in interactive suicide prevention video
October 22, 2008
0 Comments
A colleague pointed me to a Washington Post article describing an interactive suicide prevention video the Army has produced and will make mandatory for all soldiers. I experimented with the online demo of Beyond the Front, which shows scenes from the life two soldiers and allows the viewer to make choices that either lead toward [...]
Read moreDescription of Golden Gate Bridge Barrier
October 21, 2008
4 Comments
My last two posts focused on means restriction–the aim of preventing suicide by reducing a person’s access to a quick and lethal suicide method. The Golden Gate Bridge Physical Suicide Deterrent Project has been a highly publicized (and controversial) state effort to determine out the best way to balance the imperative of saving lives [...]
Read moreResource re: means restriction in practice
September 22, 2008
2 Comments
I’ve had a nice response to the brief commentary I posted in conjunction with a link to the NY Times article about means restriction. In light of that, I thought I’d post a link to the a site called Means Matter, which is published by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. The site has summary [...]
Read more
