-
In Crisis Support How Do You Validate Without Colluding?
When starting out in crisis support, it’s difficult not to relate. I would hear something heart breaking and want to say ‘Hey, me too!’ but was told this isn’t appropriate… After years of service and many hundreds of conversations, I can confirm; it is inappropriate! But for so many of us (myself included) it can…
-
Stop Trying To Improve Until You’ve Done This
Nobody starts out ‘good’ at crisis support. At least, nobody in the hundreds I’ve mentored, trained or watched go through the journey. When we’re early in – taking those first tentative steps – the expectations we place on ourselves can really hurt. When I first came through I found it incredibly disheartening if things didn’t…
-
Responsibility To Increase Ease + Quality Of Your Suicide Support
The biggest barrier to developing non-judgement is the burden of self awareness Learning to hold non-judgemental space for people can be incredibly uncomfortable and confronting. This discomfort begins with self discovery. Its clear we need to let go of our biases, judgements and even the roles we think we have to play (and therefore our…
-
3 Keys To Navigating Conversations About Suicide
1. When people are suicidal, they don’t need solutions. Suicidal people don’t feel connected. Suicide is the ultimate form of withdrawal. People withdraw in greater and more devastating ways until finally they withdraw from life itself. If you’re trying to help someone, resist the temptation to provide answers, advice and solutions. Focus on how you…
-
Provide Suicide Support Without The Collusion Guilt-Trap
Social dynamics of power. To understand collusion, think of what happens when someone has what another wants. A home, food, sex or even validation and support. If you have what someone wants, you have more power than them. No need to judge or fight this, it’s a basic truth. Suicide supporters have a unique power…
-
Step One Of ‘What To Listen To’ In Suicide Prevention
First key concept: Signal is what you hear Everything you hear coming from the other person is ‘signal’, there’s no better way to find out what’s meaningful than tuning in to their words. It may seem obvious, but to do this well is actually incredibly advanced. If someone ever told you about a bad day…
-
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…
-
Contextualising the 5 Senses Grounding Technique
Intention Offering the five senses grounding technique has a bit of an art to it, for today let’s look at what to do when someone has already agreed they want to give it a try. By the time we’re done, you’ll see how you can elevate the 5 senses grounding technique through subtle turns of…
-
Attending to both Feelings and Safety
Often when learning something it’s easy to rulify things. This helps to simplify the complex. When used in the right way, simple rules for practice can make a huge difference in developing our skillset and comfort level engaging compassionately with self awareness. When used poorly, over simplification of rules or guidelines can really hurt connection.…
-
Are We Aligned?
We all slip out of alignment with the framework sometimes. Perhaps we get caught up in a story. Maybe we offer some advice, moving away from collaboration toward direction. Could be we don’t feel comfortable to sit with a help seeker saying brutally critical things about themselves, so we accidentally deny their feelings in an…
