Working with Suicidal Clients: Hope and Recovery in Suicide Care (online)

Working with Suicidal Clients, offered online through Samaritan Center of Puget Sound, presents an updated overview of clinical interventions for suicide risk with a focus on treatment strategies for ongoing psychotherapy.

With improvements in the standardization of suicide risk assessment and management, clinicians have a set of strategies to manage acute suicidal crises. After these interventions are completed, however, clinicians are not always clear on the next steps for effective intervention. This workshop will establish a foundation for current best practices in suicide risk assessment and management by reviewing recommendations from state and national oversight agencies. The focus will then turn to establishing a theoretical basis for how some people, in response to stressful circumstances and emotional distress, interpret the circumstances and experience the distress in ways that led to suicide as an option. Based on this understanding, participants will learn treatment strategies to target these direct drivers of suicide in a manner that restores hope and facilitates recovery.

This workshop meets requirements in Washington State under the Matt Adler Suicide Assessment, Treatment and Management Act of 2012, and is open to anyone in the healthcare field.

Jeffrey Sung, M.D. is an acting instructor with the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Since 2002, his clinical responsibilities have included direct service and consultation in the care of individuals facing homelessness, medical illness, substance use, and psychiatric conditions. He has taught psychodynamic theory, suicide risk assessment and managing response to patient suicide to psychiatrists, psychiatry residents, primary care providers, and social workers. In addition to work with the university, Dr. Sung also maintains a private practice. In 2015, Dr. Sung received the Sue Eastgard Training Excellence Award for his involvement in the workshop, “Working with Suicidal Clients” for mental health professionals.

In 2016, Dr. Sung was featured in a Suicide Prevention Resource Center video highlighting issues related to suicide among men in the middle years.