Twenty years ago, Brown (1) pointed out that the subject of the impact of suicide on therapists-in-training received too little attention. The article by Fang et al. (2) reminds us that things have not changed much since Browns review article. As Fang et al. note, there have been a few studies devoted to this topic, but no formal training for residents has been established. Interestingly, even the Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology (3) devoted only about half of one page of its 650 pages to this topic. Even in that short half page the authors (4) mention the profound psychological consequences of experiencing a patients suicide, such as intrusive thoughts relating to patient suicide, avoidance of situations that might remind one of the suicide, self-blame, guilt, loss of confidence in ones professional competence, and fear of losing standing with professional colleagues. We can only speculate about the reasons for this unfortunate lack of attention to this important topic. I have experienced patient suicide as a resident and as a supervisor of residents whose patients committed suicide. Formal training would probably help a little, but I have to say that nothing could fully prepare me as a resident, and the
Encountering Patient Suicide: The Need for Guidelines
Abstract
Twenty years ago, Brown (1) pointed out that the subject of the impact of suicide on therapists-in-training received too little attention. The article by Fang et al. (2) reminds us that things have not changed much since Browns review article. As Fang et al. note, there have been a few studies devoted to this topic, but no formal training for residents has been established. Interestingly, even the Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology (3) devoted only about half of one page of its 650 pages to this topic. Even in that short half page the authors (4) mention the profound psychological consequences of experiencing a patients suicide, such as intrusive thoughts relating to patient suicide, avoidance of situations that might remind one of the suicide, self-blame, guilt, loss of confidence in ones professional competence, and fear of losing standing with professional colleagues. We can only speculate about the reasons for this unfortunate lack of attention to this important topic. I have experienced patient suicide as a resident and as a supervisor of residents whose patients committed suicide. Formal training would probably help a little, but I have to say that nothing could fully prepare me as a resident, and the
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Encountering Patient Suicide: The Need for Guidelines
Balon, Richard
Follow Academic Psychiatry
, Volume 31 (5): 336
American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc (Journal) – Oct 1, 2007
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