ABSTRACT
Few forces within a family are as disturbing as the threat of suicide. This is universal across cultures, social class, and family configuration. Suicidality in a family member usually drives families to seek help, and this provides therapists with unique challenges as well as opportunities. One quickly learns that suicidal intent is seldom spontaneous and isolated. Instead, it normally betrays an evolution of failed expectations, perceived rejection, loneliness, and loss of hope. The antecedents to suicidal intent are normally either invisible to family members or misinterpreted by them. However, once the acute risk of suicide is identified and under control, the issues that induced suicidal intent in the first place need to be addressed, and family members are critical resources in the reversal of depression. This chapter underscores the complementary role mental health workers and family counselors can play in the treatment of suicidal clients and their families. The theoretical model we work from blends brief solution-focused techniques and cognitive-behavioral therapies, although the therapeutic techniques will be familiar to many practitioners of other therapies within the family systems framework. For safety purposes, immediate attention is often on the suicidal client, but soon, and inevitably, the therapeutic focus shifts to the family in order to bring about change and to promote prevention. The recommendations herein represent a relatively structured approach to family ther-
apy and stem from experience in a multidisciplinary community outpatient clinic, which is part of a university training clinic.
