ABSTRACT
Cognitive Therapy for Suicide Prevention (CT-SP) is a brief, targeted, and evidence-based psychotherapy that aims to reduce the risk of suicide in high-risk individuals by teaching them cognitive and behavioral skills for managing suicidal ideation and preventing suicide attempts (Wenzel, Brown, & Beck, 2009). CT-SP is brief in that it is comprised of approximately ten 50-minute sessions that may be provided as a stand-alone treatment or in conjunction with other mental health treatment. CT-SP is targeted in that the explicit focus of the treatment is on suicide prevention, as opposed to targeting psychiatric disorders that may also comprise the clinical picture. CT-SP is evidence based in that a landmark study of CT-SP in psychiatric outpatients recruited individuals from emergency departments and inpatient units following a suicide attempt (Brown et al., 2005). Participants were randomly assigned to receive either 10 sessions of CT-SP or usual care enhanced by case management and followed prospectively for 18 months. This study found that CT-SP led to a 50% reduction in repeat suicide attempts compared to enhanced usual care. As a follow up to this study, the developers are currently conducting a clinical trial evaluating an adaptation of CT-SP for older men with suicidal ideation.
