Losing a client to suicide represents a dreaded outcome of mental health care. In response to this loss, clinicians may have a range of experiences that occur while fulfilling professional roles and responsibilities. This session will provide an overview of responses to losing a client to suicide and suggestions for coping and integrating the loss. By learning about this topic, we can support personal and professional growth for ourselves and colleagues.

Learning Objectives  
By the conclusion of this event, participants will be able to:

1. Recognize implicit beliefs about suicide that influence responses to suicide loss. 
2. Identify four “narratives of violent dying” that characterize how suicide loss is interpreted.  
3. Prepare a plan for administrative tasks after the suicide of a client. 
4. Recognize aspects of personal and professional growth as suicide loss becomes integrated.   

Instructor | Dr. Jeffrey Sung is a board-certified psychiatrist and clinical assistant professor in the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.  He has developed and delivered trainings on suicide prevention, suicide care, and responding to patient suicide locally and nationally for a broad range of audiences.  His work with the Safer Homes program through Forefront Suicide Prevention at the UW School of Social Work has focused on cultural aspects of firearms ownership and use and how these influence policy and clinical care.  For seventeen years, he provided psychiatric care in downtown Seattle through a Health Care for the Homeless Network grant.  He currently maintains a private practice for patient care, training, forensic and clinical consultation.   

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Suicide remains a leading cause of death both in the United States and globally (https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide). Despite the significance of suicide as a public health issue, funding for suicide prevention and research remains low (https://report.nih.gov/funding/categorical-spending#/), comprehensive training in the area of suicide in graduate programs remains low (https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/suli.33.2.211.22769) as does general provider competency with treatment of suicidal individuals (https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2008-10899-004). One possible linkage between these phenomena is the presence of stigma related to suicide and the treatment of suicidal individuals. In order to create lasting systemic change to address suicide as a public health issue the concept of stigma must be addressed in a meaningful and effective manner. The current presentation outlines what we currently know about the impact of stigma and suicide, individual level and system interventions which may lower stigma, and outlines potential future directions for suicide stigma work bridging the dialectic between stigmatizing suicide and inadvertently increasing the probability of suicide.

Learning Objectives  
By the conclusion of this event, participants will be able to:

1. Participants will be able to identify individual and group characteristics associated with having more stigmatizing views of suicide
2. Participants will be able to describe the potentially negative impact of stigma on mental health outcomes with regards to suicide
3. Participants will be able to describe the potential for increases in suicide risk when normalizing suicide
4. Participants will be able to identify multiple behaviorally specific strategies for reducing stigma related to suicide in their communities
5. Participants will be able to identify multiple behaviorally specific strategies for increasing effective treatment of suicide in their communities
6.  

Instructor | Dr. White received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Rhode Island and was a fellow at Harvard Medical School before moving to Oregon, where he is a licensed psychologist. His clinical areas of expertise include suicide, clinical risk management, adolescent and family treatment, dialectical behavior therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral therapy, and implementation of evidence-based practice. He has extensive research and evaluation experience on both coasts, with specific interests in community-based program evaluation, multilevel modeling, frequent use of psychiatric emergency services, and general evaluation of evidence-based practice. As an advocate of the scientist/practitioner model, he has a strongly held value and passion for the adherent delivery of effective evidence-based treatment, especially for individuals who have experienced barriers to accessing mental health services.

In addition to clinical services, Dr. White trains internationally on suicide prevention and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and specializes in the implementation of DBT with non-dominant and native populations. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor within the Department of Psychiatry, Clinical Psychology within the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, is board certified in DBT through the Linehan Board of Certification, holds ABPP Board Certification in Clinical and Behavioral Psychology, volunteers as a journal reviewer, and volunteers in multiple capacities for the Linehan Board of Certification.

He is co-owner of the Portland DBT Institute (PDBTI) and serves as the Associate Director.  At PDBTI he works with the management team to set program policy, provides clinical services to adults, adolescents, and families, oversees research and evaluation services, and provides supervision to psychologist residents and clinical staff.

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