First, thank you for volunteering. It's important work.
That said, all due respect, but:
>I never lost anybody.
... That's because you were lucky.
"Active Listening" is really great and all and yes, it's helpful in many situations, and you clearly did very good work -- but it's dangerous to assume that it's always that simple, or that a little "active listening" is all that stands between suicidal people in general and recovery.
My wife worked as a therapist for a long time with a lot of severely distressed folks, many of whom suffered from suicidal tendencies of various kinds, and we got to know a lot of psych people. The one thing that all who had practiced for a while agreed on was this: work with suicidal people long enough, and some are going to die. You can't "save" every one, no matter what.
I don't want to come across as too critical (here or in my lower, now-pending comment re BPD) because I am truly glad you were volunteering and helping at all, but the notion that suicidality is this easy to deal with is dangerous, and I want to try to talk you and other readers out of it.
That said, all due respect, but:
>I never lost anybody.
... That's because you were lucky.
"Active Listening" is really great and all and yes, it's helpful in many situations, and you clearly did very good work -- but it's dangerous to assume that it's always that simple, or that a little "active listening" is all that stands between suicidal people in general and recovery.
My wife worked as a therapist for a long time with a lot of severely distressed folks, many of whom suffered from suicidal tendencies of various kinds, and we got to know a lot of psych people. The one thing that all who had practiced for a while agreed on was this: work with suicidal people long enough, and some are going to die. You can't "save" every one, no matter what.
I don't want to come across as too critical (here or in my lower, now-pending comment re BPD) because I am truly glad you were volunteering and helping at all, but the notion that suicidality is this easy to deal with is dangerous, and I want to try to talk you and other readers out of it.