TRANSCRIPT FOR EDGE OF THE COUCH
Episode: When the client wants to die
Alison
This podcast is not training or supervision. This is an invitation to delve into these really big topics. When we are talking about clients, please know, it is not you. It is a weaving together of stories that come up over and over again.
Jordan
With Edge of the couch, we are here to create a space to delve into the topics that were either shied away from or dismissed because they were too big, too nuanced, too risky or too uncomfortable to discuss in school or even supervision. We are too passionate therapists sharing our personal opinions about the therapeutic process.
Alison
Hi, everyone. I'm Alison.
Jordan
And I'm Jordan.
Alison
And this is Edge of the couch. Today we are going to talk about and I'm super anxious about it. But, it's going to be good.
Jordan
Notice that.
Alison
Noticing that. We are going to talk about suicide, when a client talks about suicide.
Jordan
As you're listening to this episode, take care of yourself, notice your own responses, maybe after the episode, you might want to do some journaling, because even though we're talking about clients who are thinking about or taking actions around suicide, as therapists, we may also have experiences or thoughts around suicide. So take care of yourself.
Alison
This episode is not in any way meant to supplement appropriate training for suicide safety planning with a client or these types of things. We are just going to talk about our experiences as therapists working in this way and honestly, just what comes up for each of us. I think it's interesting, we compare what comes up for us and it's different, there might be like a robust conversation here. Is there anything you would add to that caveat?
Jordan
Our intention today is really for us, but also you as listeners to explore and reflect on what your own responses around suicide are; your own values that may come up, get in the way even of being able to do the work, because that is not talked about in our training as much.
Alison
Yeah.
Jordan
And so this is a place for us to really drop in and look at this, because it's a very important part of our work.
Alison
It is and it's tender and kind of scary.
Jordan
Yeah.
Alison
To not do an episode on suicide, because it's hard to have a nuanced conversation about it - we don't want to contribute to the silence around it. We want to really talk about it, even though it's tricky to talk about and we don't have all the answers.
Jordan
To have that grounded understanding of where you're coming from because I think that will serve us and our clients.
Alison
And the very last caveat before we dive in is that I don't think Jordan, you have and I know that I have not had a client complete suicide.
Jordan
No, I haven't.
Alison
That's a context that matters, I think.
Jordan
Yes, it does.
Alison
Where should we start?
Jordan
I would like to start in asking and reflecting on what your narratives were growing up. This is for our listeners to maybe answer but also maybe for us to speak to a little bit about what our narratives were around suicide growing up, maybe some of our own stuff around suicide now as adults.
Alison
Okay, I may need a minute to think do you want to start with yours?
Jordan
Sure. Like many people, I grew up with suicide being something that people didn't speak about. In this moment, I'm remembering that in middle school, I was a peer support. I got trained as a peer support person. They taught us to do suicide risk assessment, and basically just tell the teacher.
Alison
Right.
Jordan
Pretty much what it was, connect with them and tell the teacher and one of my friends soon after that disclosed to me that she was having suicidal thoughts. In a note, like those little football notes, we would pass, the days before texting. She said that she was going to kill herself over the weekend and I immediately took it to our shared school counselor. I don't know what he did with that information but that whole weekend, I was thinking about her and worried about her.
Alison
Yes, of course.
Jordan
In that way, I felt very responsible for her living. Also, my family thinks about it as very selfish. I've heard my parents say that about people who have died by suicide, saying that it's selfish and hurtful to their family. I don't agree with that at all but that is a narrative that was around me. As an adult, well, I'll just leave it at that. What about you, Alison?
Alison
It's funny. I don't know how my parents talk about suicide, which probably speaks to a larger issue that maybe we just never talked about it.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
But I couldn't tell you what my parents think. It's such a strange thing because I live in a very small town in the middle of nowhere in northern DC, and so many of my peers have died. So many, but none of them were people that died by suicide. So I have all of this experience about how to sit in the feelings around people dying through accidents, which is primarily the way that my peers have died. But I have so much less personal experience around suicide, except as you were telling that story, I had a flashback to such a strange night of my life. I think I was 13 or 14, I was MSNing with a friend of mine who had moved away after elementary school. These were the early days of webcams. She was seeing this guy and he was kind of weird and then he came on the video. He started threatening that he was going to kill himself. He had a sword. It’s a very distant memory. I got really scared. It was on a sleepover and I was sneaking being on the computer and it wasn't supposed to be on at night. I still woke my mom up. I woke her up and said, this is happening. I'm really scared. She came downstairs and got on the video with him saying, where are you? I mean, they live in a different city. They live in a different province.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
She handled it for me, but I remember being very scared and feeling instantly out of my depth. It's big and I can't handle it. Very buried memory. I haven't thought about that probably, since I was a teenager. So that's kind of a funny one to have.
Jordan
Yeah, and how it's confusing, right? People don't talk about it. It's hard to know how to make sense of it in adulthood, but especially in childhood.
Alison
Yes. Where people are at great risk.
Jordan
Yes, I'm not saying that this is true about any of the people that you're talking about. But as you said, you talked about accidents. I also just want to say that sometimes what gets ruled as accidents are suicide in that we don't get into our cars and get into a single vehicle accident, on purpose. Yes. Even not one hundred percent consciously, if that makes sense. I mean, this isn't the focus of our conversation but I just I want to point that out.
Alison
They don't do emotional autopsies, following a lot of accidents. Many of them get ruled accidents where maybe the person was planning a suicide and people don't know. If they do any digging, they find this evidence around, oh, it might not have been much of an accident. Even as you said it, I realized that a person I grew up with did die by accident that looked a lot like suicide, and there was messiness there. It can get very convoluted.
Jordan
Yes, again, as you're listening, this might be something to think about or reflect on. What narratives did you grow up with? But what about our values as clinicians?
Alison
Yes, that one I find easier to talk about, because I think I've just fleshed it out a lot more as an adult than I had. But let's start with you again.
Jordan
As clinicians, we get trained in very particular ways around suicide and because it's life and death, we of course, are trained to take it very seriously; to go through the steps of risk assessment, potentially breaking confidentiality for the safety of the person that we're working with. The first place that I worked at post-graduation, was a rape crisis center with women who experienced sexualized violence, and people who have experienced sexual assault, especially if you're in a community, like a school or even a small town or even a family who responds to that person by blaming them or minimizing or denying that it happened. That is a huge risk for suicide.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
And so that was just something that I would ask about regularly. For a lot of folks, suicidal thoughts were just something that they lived with. So I feel really comfortable talking about suicide, really comfortable asking about suicide.
Alison
I think that's good.
Jordan
Yes. I think it's good too but before we got on the call, sometimes, because of the way that our peers respond to suicide; sometimes I wonder if I'm not alarmed enough. Maybe I'm not taking it seriously enough. Being someone who hasn't had a client die by suicide, I haven't had that experience. So, I find that it's probably easier for me to say, Oh, I have all these clients that live with suicidal thoughts that maybe have had experiences or have attempted in the past, but aren't at immediate risk and so it's easier to be grounded and chill about it.
Alison
It's like hypothetical. It's theoretical. We don't know what that feels like.
Jordan
Yes. And then I'm able to distinguish that. I'm able to like stand in the knowing that okay, this is not an immediate risk and I also know for our peers, sometimes there is a confusion for people of trying to assess imminent risk versus passing suicidal thoughts because, one; maybe I'm going too far into this, but one because maybe clients don't feel safe enough with that person to disclose it or because the clinician isn't used to hearing about suicidal thoughts. So when they do, it's alarming.
Alison
Deregulating!
Jordan
Yes!
Alison
I feel like when I'm in the moment with a client, and they're talking about their suicidal thoughts, I can stay so grounded, so calm, just ask the right questions or what feel like the right questions, I can circle back, I can say to them, hey, we've drifted away from that, but I do have a couple more questions. I need to be sure you're safe. Those types of things. It's afterwards and when I'm outside of the therapeutic space that I'm like, wow, this is anxiety provoking.
Jordan
As you're talking about that, I can feel my breath becoming shallow.
Alison
Yes, it's so visceral.
Jordan
I'm noticing that.
Alison
This is where the anxiety lets me know that there's something here. For me, this is a conversation I've tried to have with so many of my peers and supervisors and it just doesn't always go the way that I want it to; but where I have such an internal battle between a sense of ethical and personal responsibility, wanting to follow the rules, as it were, around safety planning and appropriate assessment, and simultaneously knowing at the core of my being believing that clients have the right to do whatever they want to do, including end their lives.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
This is where, for me, it gets so murky and I feel like I'm in this place of tension and discomfort, because I always do a formal, as formal as possible, suicide assessment in those moments, is that the thing that is helping my client? Is safety planning going to be the thing, or is it you talk about more going to the connection, and relationship and I'm doing the one thing because I want to cover my ass. It has been so ingrained in us as clinicians through training, through community, peers; it's very perpetuated that you have to appropriately assess and then safety plan.
Jordan
Yes. Even, as you say, I do it as formally as possible, I'm like, maybe I'm calling you out right now, Alison, but I think a lot of the ideas for therapists are to pull out an actual sheet of paper, and do that assessment and you don't do that?
Alison
No, I don't do that.
Jordan
I think that when people think about doing proper suicide assessment, they are imagining pulling out a piece of paper, and going through these questions with clients. There's a lot of pressure from our peers that we at least…
Alison
Do that?
Jordan
Or say that we do that, even if we don't do it, you know?
Alison
Yes. So that's a good clarifying point, because I don't do that.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
I guess it's much more conversational and I caveat and I try to be very transparent with clients, like, Oh, this is a big topic and I have some questions I have to ask you just to be sure that you're safe. But I want to know what's going on for you. Then also, if a client won't safety plan with me, I don't make them. If I say hey, could we come up with a plan for what to do in those moments, and they say, I already know what I do and then they tell me what they do. I'm not going to say, you have to write it down. We're creating a document and writing down who you call and then if they're not available, who you call, which is traditional classic safety plan.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
So you're right. I guess it's a lot. It's so funny, because even that level of formality of what I'm doing makes me uncomfortable and it's not even apparently, as formal as it gets.
Jordan
Yes. Also, I think it's important to mention here, even if you're training; I feel very grounded in saying this, but even if your training tells you, safety contracts do not work.
Alison
They really don't and research has shown that for a long time.
Jordan
Yes and so this is one place where, let's say your training says to do it; it's not effective. I feel confident being able to say that.
Alison
It just really isn't, also weird and shame-based to me; you have to tether your life to mine.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
And if you sign this contract, you are not allowed to kill yourself.
Jordan
It is a cover your ass situation.
Alison
Oh, one hundred percent
Jordan
In saying oh, I got this. So therefore if they die by suicide, then it's not my fault, because they told me they wouldn't.
Alison
They signed on the dotted line.
Jordan
I think that's another important thing for us to name which is that so much of our culture as clinicians is to cover your ass around suicide.
Alison
Absolutely.
Jordan
And I think it's important for us to name that because even though I understand professional liability, I would hope that we are holding our clients actual safety at the center.
Alison
Yes, and this is again, where I think you and I have different emotional reactions to the conversation because I do feel scared about covering my ass. Those thoughts come up for me, I think much more than they do for you, despite the fact that I'm doing it in this way that is not as formal, perhaps as other clinicians. I sit down to write my notes, and I make them detailed. Well, other notes that I write are so informal and quite vague intentionally. Whenever a client comes to talk about suicide, I write almost verbatim sometimes, a quote, because I am scared about it coming back onto me.
Jordan
Yes, and I think writing good notes is important. For me, it's more about what the conversation looks like. I'm going to talk about myself. My understanding, is that one of the most important risk factors is connection.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
So that...
Alison
Protective factor.
Jordan
Yes, protective factor. Thank you. So connection is prevention. To me..
Alison
Oh, beautiful, yes.
Jordan
For someone to pull out a piece of paper. If somebody is telling me and naming suicide, there's a part of them that doesn't want to die.
Alison
One hundred percent.
Jordan
And so we're going to absolutely be able to work with these parts, the part that wants to die, the part that wants to live, and to lean forward into having that conversation. This is going to, first of all, let’s say they're not imminently suicidal, it'll open up the future conversations about it, especially if there's somebody that lives with it, that it comes and goes, but it is also prevention…
Alison
Totally.
Jordan
Because, you may be the only person that they have told about their thoughts about suicide, and to then put up a piece of paper between the two of you could rupture that connection for them, which increases their risk.
Alison
Yes, it's tricky because I totally agree and there are sites that make clinicians do that.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
We have the luxury of being in private practice. We had to decide, this is the other thing too, there is no universally accepted assessment for suicide and then this score means you do this this way. That doesn't exist in a lot of ways. There are some but not everyone agrees with them and there is no universal way to assess for suicide, and so much of it falls on your sense of it. You are dictating whether it's high risk, medium risk, low risk based on arbitrary things.
Jordan
Yes. I remember in school, when we're taught this, people were like, but give me the answer.
Alison
I still feel that way with my supervisors. I'm say, what do I do?
Jordan
It really is unclear. We can know protective factors, risk factors and it's disconcerting to understand that a lot of it is our overall sense of what's going on. I can see why, especially newer clinicians, are going to lean towards having a very conservative approach and maybe breaking confidentiality. Not easily, but they're more ready to...
Alison
in what they believe is protecting the client.
Jordan
Oh, yes, exactly. I think that might be safe because if you are unsure, then of course you want to be cautious.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
But I think as you get more experience, you, well, I get better at being able to differentiate passing thoughts, maybe long-term risk, and then immediate risk.
Alison
I agree. This is why I think it's so important as clinicians to, in the moment, remain as calm as possible. Because if you go to the scared anxiety place, you're going to respond in such a way; you're going to read into clues as so high risk, I think, which I think is an error that I made as a new clinician. I've never had to take someone to the hospital, thankfully.
Jordan
I have.
Alison
You have?
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
You have to stay calm and just know that anything, whether it's disclosure of sexual abuse, or disclosure of weird sexual things that they like that you have to stay with them and not fly off the handle emotionally and not be like, Oh, shit, suicide, oh, no, ahhh; to just be like, okay, they're disclosing something to me. I'm going to be curious about it. I'm going to ask questions about it.
Jordan
I feel deeply honored for somebody to share that with me.
Alison
I always tell people how honored I feel that they would tell me.
Jordan
Yes. Another piece around maybe after, or just in our own understanding, I think it's important to ask what is the meaning of suicide?
Alison
Yes, to that person.
Jordan
And that I think it does mean different things. For some people, I think we've said this, that it is an end to suffering.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
Physical, emotional suffering.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
For some people, it's no one cares if I'm alive. I'm a burden to other people. My loved ones would be better off without me. For some people, it's about this is your your realm. I'll sin around, what's the point of living?
Alison
Totally, bad choice!
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
It's I choose not to anymore. I don't want to.
Jordan
That this is, I can see a future for myself and it's not the future I want.
Alison
We talk about dying with dignity and we talk about people who are medically or physically ill being given the right to die. Well, I hope most clinicians believe, maybe that's judgmental of me, but I hope so anyway, that most clinicians believe people have the right to a dignified death. We want to talk about choice in those situations and why is it so different when someone is mentally unwell?
Jordan
I would question that. I bet that's not as universal as...
Alison
Do you figure? As I said, I wondered.
Jordan
Yes. I think that's why this is an important conversation, because our values around suicide are really going to play into how we respond to clients.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
In some ways, it will inform the choices that we make in moving forward and hopefully we can be aware of that, but it also may have us leaning towards saying things that really are unhelpful.
Alison
It will get better. You don't know if it will get better for your client. It could get way worse for your client.
Jordan
Your suicide will hurt your family.
Alison
Yes, think of who you're leaving behind.
Jordan
Yes, which is not helpful.
Alison
It's hard for me to imagine mental health clinicians not being okay with dignified death. But you're right, that is a bias that I have and you're absolutely right. I hadn't even thought of this, that those people respond so differently to the conversations around suicide.
Jordan
Yes. Suicide is wrong.
Alison
Right. Like you have to live.
Jordan
Yes, religion might play into that, too.
Alison
I listened to a podcast episode the other day. I can't remember the podcast name, which is terrible but they take questions from audience members, and they answer them. One of the question was about this woman who had these medical issues and was going to choose to die by suicide. I don't even think like physician assisted death or anything medically assisted death, just to choose to take their own life. The psychologist, I think they were all psychologists talking about it on the podcast, were very uncomfortable with the idea. They all said if she came to me and asked for a letter to say, she should get medically assisted death that none of them would feel comfortable with it.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
Very scared of this, aren't we?
Jordan
Yes, and again, that's the other thing. Maybe it's not just your relationship to suicide, but your relationship to death is your discomfort and how that might come between you and get in the way of you being able to do the work.
Alison
If you can't talk to your client about their inevitable death, then what does that mean? How does that stunt therapy? What gets in the way and, that relationship between the general death conversation and suicide, they are so intertwined.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
Every time that a client discloses suicidal thoughts to me, I make sure I ask all the questions; I make sure our connection report is still safe. I make sure that they are safe. But then in my head, I'm saying, wow, all of this is so murky. That's where the struggle for me comes from - the autonomy piece, the fact that we all die anyway piece, the existentialism of choice and responsibility and death. For me, it's all very murky and soupy and complicated.
Jordan
Yes. If you have experiences with suicidal thoughts, or attempts, people who you've lost to suicide, I'm somebody who has really bad migraines for various reasons. In the depths of excruciating pain, and when I'm there, it's almost like I'm witnessing, there's a part of me that's noticing what's happening as it's happening. I think to myself, if this was my reality, this was my everyday, I don't think I would want to live. I hold that knowledge that knowing in my bones when I'm sitting with somebody who's suicidal. There are a lot of different reasons, like we said, underlying meaning of suicide for each person. I don't want to make the assumption but for people who are in excruciating, emotional pain, I can empathize with the 'I want this to end.'
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
And what does that mean about how I respond?
Alison
Totally. That's the big question I think that we're posing here. What is your shit that is going to come up when a client discloses suicidal thoughts do you? Mine is obviously the cover your ass shit and the internal battle around be present Alison, stay with the client and this background fear around, will someone blame me for this? Everyone has different shit, so being able to know and maybe you don't know until it comes up and then wow, there's countertransference and you have to sit in that and explore it. It's so messy and soupy.
Jordan
This maybe a theoretical orientation piece, but how do we show up ourselves because we can notice these narratives that we have, and in what ways might we bring parts of those in, for example, deep empathy? We talk about feeling honored that they would share that with us, but what about, I don't know what I would exactly say, but something like I'm with you, and how painful this is. I can feel this. I can feel where you're at and it is very heavy.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
I can feel that in my body here sitting with you right now. Something like that. How do we bring in our bodies, our connection with them into our conversation, not saying, I would miss you.
Alison
This would riddle me with guilt for years.
Jordan
I guess on the flip side, sometimes when people share with me past experiences of past attempts, or having struggled as a teenager, for example, and they're an adult now, I will say something like, I'm really glad that you're here.
Alison
Yes. Can I circle back to something that you said?
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
I really like this idea that we've landed on, which I didn't know we were going to get to, which is around how you have to know your own response in order to figure out what's going to go on for you as a clinician. I hope it doesn't make you feel called out.
Jordan
No, please.
Alison
You know, because you go into to these sessions with this sense of yes, I've been in the depths of pain, because of X,Y,X reasons. So some part of me knows how tough this is. I wonder if that also for any of us, but maybe for you, makes you say, maybe something unconscious like, but since I would never do it, maybe that also means that they would never do it despite being in the depths of pain.
Jordan
I mean, if it is, it's completely unconscious, but there is this piece, which I think is parallel to what you're talking about, which is there's the awareness that peers like for you, it's a cover your ass situation. For me, it's my peers would judge me if they knew that I wasn't doing the type of assessment that they want me to do. Even though I'm grounded in the way that I work, when I end sessions with people who are talking about suicide, I feel very grounded in how I've responded, and I have not had a client die by suicide. So there is a small part of me that goes, are you not taking this seriously enough? Are you too relaxed about it? Shouldn't you be more alarmed? Does this mean that you don't care enough? If you were really concerned, it shows that you care. So that's just a part of me that feels that way. But as we really settle in here, that's something that comes up.
Alison
Yes and it's interesting, because I feel like your part sometimes triggers my part and my part triggers your part where you are quite laissez-faire. Then I'm like, why am I so high strung about it? Why am I so worried? Honestly, I always talk about how scared I am of getting sued. There's a huge part of me that is scared of that. Why? I do my job very well. Then I feel like maybe me talking about being so scared about it, and more worried about those pieces maybe makes that laissez-faire part of you be like, wait, should I care more? And there's a perpetuating back of the mind thing, like, why do I care so much? Can I go to that more connection place? It's hard because sitting outside of my sessions in reflection, maybe I am, and maybe the fear isn't so present in the sessions, but it's certainly present outside of them.
Jordan
That's the other piece for me, which is how I say does this mean I don't care? It's between sessions. I don't feel afraid.
Alison
Right. We have literally the opposite reaction.
Jordan
I don't feel afraid in sessions or out of sessions apparently. I think about my clients, all of my clients in between sessions, in all sorts of ways when things come up. Maybe part of it is I don't feel responsible for their lives and that's a philosophical standpoint.
Alison
Yes and to clarify, neither do I. It's not even about that. For me, if a client were to kill themselves, I would not think I was responsible, but I would be worried that their family members would think that I didn't do things well.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
Because I do think the clients have the right. The core of me believes people have the right to do with their bodies, whatever they're going to do.
Jordan
We look at the whole picture and then we try to make a judgment based on that full picture. We're not responsible for, we're responsible to.
Alison
Ooh, I love that.
Jordan
Yes. We're responsible to them. We need to show up fully, be caring and concerned and respectful of their personhood and their choices. So we can get the whole picture of what's going on, we ask the questions, we have the conversations, we lean forward, and we're deeply caring and curious and grounded.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
They may not tell us the truth. If somebody wants to die by suicide, they will.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
And we can do what we're going to do around safety planning, and getting them in connection and working through some of the suffering that is leading to those thoughts. We do all the things that we can do and sometimes you might ask, are you thinking about suicide? And the person will say no.
Alison
Yes and it's a lie.
Jordan
Yes.
Alison
And that's the thing. We are only responsible to take action, if we know that the thoughts are there.
Jordan
Yes. Isn't that such a conflict too, because if someone feels safe enough to share that, that's when we have to potentially break confidentiality. When somebody doesn't feel safe enough, doesn't feel close, then we just can continue having the conversations. I don't know.
Alison
The whole point of doing this episode was to talk about despite us having a number of years of practice under our belts, and being in multiple training programs around these things, we're still in the flux of figuring it out. The ethics don't always necessarily align with personal values or take into consideration relationship. So, frankly, the ethics of that don't care about your rapport with the client, they care about ensuring that the client lives, which is important, life is valuable. It's tricky. I wonder if it's anything that you would say to listeners, new therapists or students to finish us off.
Jordan
There are ways in which our governments, our social safety net, our communities, the ways in which we respond to people's different identities, I'm thinking about queer kids; I'm thinking about people who've been sexually assaulted and then blamed for what they've experienced. Those are people who are in effect killed by our culture, they're thrown away. We can say that they are dying at their own hand, there is a cultural and systemic reality. There are these larger systems that are leaning into suicide and I think that's important for us as clinicians to hold on to, because usually, it's not an individual, one off thing. This is connected to the larger context and I think if we're able to stand in that, and to recognize that, maybe even name it with the client, then anytime that we can have a more nuanced understanding of the meaning and the phenomena of suicide, I think will help us in our work.
Alison
Yes, totally. Thanks for that perspective. I think we always have to be considering oppression. If we're not talking about it, we are missing a huge part of the tapestry and we're doing our clients a disservice.
Jordan
Trauma in any form that it takes is going to be a huge factor.
Alison
Yes. How could it not be? Is there anything you would say to new clinicians?
Jordan
Yes. Be mindful of how you respond of your own stuff and how that might be getting in the way. Go to supervision.
Alison
Yes.
Jordan
We have responsibility to not a responsibility for our clients, and remembering that suicide has deeper meaning to it. You can't make somebody's suicidal thoughts disappear,
Alison
or appear
Jordan
Yeah, we're up here.
Alison
You don't have any power over that.
Jordan
Yes. So how do we respond? How do we work with, how do we respond to suicidal thoughts? Not how can we fundamentally change this? From my perspective, connection is prevention and so you, building your therapeutic relationships with all of your clients, is one way you are preventing suicide.
Alison
If you're feeling scared, that's normal and if you feel worried about it, that's why we want to create the space to talk about the things that are really scary about being a therapist; really hard to talk about. This more than any other episode I feel like I really welcome people to tell us what they think. Did this resonate? Are we way off base? Did you not like the way we said something?
Jordan
Please add your voice to this conversation because Alison and I even though we have slightly different perspectives, we really do have very similar perspectives in a lot of ways and so if you have something very at odds, we would love to hear from you.
Alison
I think the one thing that we very much share in terms of perspective is that we are open to hearing other people's vision or reality around these things that neither of us believes ourselves to be the ultimate authority on anything. We are so open to hearing alternative ways of thinking about this stuff. I just absolutely don't think there's one right way here.
Jordan
Also, I understand that it's frustrating, because you might have wanted to listen to this, but maybe this will give me the answers.
Alison
Totally. Yes.
Jordan
And you didn't get your answers. You only got more questions, but that's just the way it is.
Alison
Do you want to send us out then Jordan?
Jordan
So this has been Edge of the couch. I'm Jordan,
Alison
and I'm Alison. Next time. Thanks for listening. We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at Connect@edgeofthecouch.com to tell us what you think, ask the question, or let us know what type of episode you'd love to hear. You can even send us a voice note for us to play in a future episode.
Jordan
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Alison
Join us next time at the Edge of the couch.