Crisis intervention strategies and best practices

¶ … parents would be what method of attempted suicide was involved and whether their daughter made any statements beforehand referencing it either directly or impliedly. That is because: (1) the difference between genuine suicide attempts and those that are primarily symbolic cries for attention is often manifested in the methods involved (Levine, 2008); and (2) better awareness of the daughter's communication content would obviously help the parents become aware and alert to any future suicide attempts foretold by her statements.

In treating this client, I would first communicate that any information she divulges to me is confidential and that she can tell me anything without worrying that I will disclose it to her parents. I would ask her to tell me how much she really wanted to end her life permanently at the time of her suicide attempts and how much she may have just wanted to escape from whatever she might have been feeling at that moment. I would reassure her that her primary obligation in life is only to herself and not to live up to anybody else's expectations. I might ask her to imagine, in a hypothetically perfect world, what elements of her life she might wish to change, or that she would wish were different to change her desire to live and I would ask her whether she always fights the urge to commit suicide or if the urge comes over her intensely at specific times.

Naturally, I would feel horrible if any client of mine committed suicide and I would have to fight the urge to blame myself of to second-guess my approach to treating that client. I would handle those feelings by reminding myself that as long as I followed ethical and professional protocols, I cannot blame myself for the outcome.

Part Two

To be perfectly honest, I understand that suicide is tragic in many circumstances (such as in the previous question) but not necessarily as tragic in other circumstances. Specifically, it is believed that the largest number of suicides in the U.S. is actually among the elderly who choose to end their lives consciously and rationally and at a time when the inevitable infirmities of advancing age make life unbearable, or at least less preferable to the alternative (Humphry, 2010). In fact, suicide among this population is thought to be widely underestimated, simply because under ordinary circumstances, law enforcement authorities do not investigate what appear to be deaths by natural causes among the elderly (Humphry, 2010).