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Using Abstraction In Suicide Prevention
There’s a powerful, hidden skill in suicide prevention. Read this article and you’ll be able to practice it in every day conversation – maybe even with people in distress. Who knows, it might help you support someone down from the edge. It’s called ‘Abstraction’. Abstraction is very popular and well understood in other fields like…
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How To Write With Life Saving Clarity In Digital Crisis Support
In learning suicide prevention there’s a tonne of obstacles and challenges. It’s hard, scary work and you’re here remove some of those obstacles and equip yourself with tools, skills and mindset to lower the barrier for others too. Long term this kind of work – preventing suicide – changes people, changes families, changes communities and…
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How To Finally Stop Asking ‘Why’ To People In Crisis
‘Why do you think he lied to me?’ she asked yet again, as though we hadn’t covered it a hundred times this week. My eyes wanted to roll as far back into my head as they could, I didn’t let them. I’d been here so many times in my life, with my mum, my exes,…
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3 Sentence Stems To Bring People To The Present Moment
Acknowledge with empathy and validation first. Only then will attempts at bringing focus to the present moment become meaningful. 1 >> What impact has that had on you recently, like this past hour? I’m trying to draw attention to the present. I might start by asking how it’s affected things in a wider way, like…
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How To Avoid The Dreaded F Word In Suicide Support
⚠ How does that make you FEEL? ⚠ The most common phrase used when taking the mickey out of therapists everywhere. It’s spicy territory! When I first started in anonymous support work, older men would hang up on me all the time. We’d be talking about things that happened, grief, loss, health issues, and get…
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Boost Suicide Prevention Skills With 3 Sentence Stem Tips
1. Write down reflections to slow thinking and speed up results. My crisis support skills always developed at the speed of my self awareness. Put another way, my growth was as slow as my ability to reflect and learn about myself. If you don’t write reflectively it might be for the following reasons: Can’t be…
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Here’s How Writing Sentence Stems Can Save Lives
In suicide prevention, you can’t control outcomes but you can improve your skill set. After many hours of crisis support the toughest part was by far feeling like I’d failed someone. If I got hung up on or worse, I’d beat myself up and feel terrible. On one hand I know I can only do…
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Sentence Stems to Invite More Information
When I first started I really struggled. I had no idea what was professional and what wasn’t. How was I meant to be authentic without colluding? Hell I had a hard enough time even holding down basic conversation! Well over time I figured some stuff out, that’s why there’s a lot of theory in this…
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Edit Less, Impact More with Sentence Stem Workshopping
Why to Practice Workshopping Sentences When you’re in the hotseat and providing support to someone in crisis, you don’t have time to edit. You’ve got their words waiting for you on the screen, or their voice waiting for you over the phone. You don’t have the luxury of crafting a perfect reply if they’re waiting!…
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Sentence Stems for Asking About Suicide
Resistance can show up in many forms. Any of the following might be a sign that asking about suicide is something you may want to work on; This isn’t an exhaustive list of course. But if you find yourself falling into doing one or more of these, the following sentence stems might really help you…
