Citation

Veilleux JC, Bilsky SA. Train. Educ. Prof. Psychol. 2016; 10(4): 214-222.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, American Psychological Association and the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers)

DOI

10.1037/tep0000127

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Experiencing a client suicide or another form of client death is not uncommon for health service psychology trainees, or trainees in other mental health disciplines (e.g., psychiatry, counseling, social work). Yet, the majority of training programs and training clinics do not have procedures in place for managing a client death. The purpose of the current paper is to provide a set of recommendations for client death postvention procedures, focused primarily on client death by suicide. The aim is to help training programs and clinics respond appropriately to trainees in the aftermath of a client death. Our recommendations are based in a review of existing literature around therapists and trainees experiences with client suicide, and involve suggestions for notification procedures and 2 separate meetings with the trainee who served as the primary therapist for the deceased client. The first meeting involves provision of support to the trainee, with secondary goals of planning around communication of the client death to program staff and students, and additional future planning around trainee needs. The second meeting serves as a critical incident review, with administrative and educational goals around understanding the case progression to help the trainee, supervisor, clinic, and program improve client care. We provide a basic template that can be amended for specific programs and settings, and discuss the extant research support for the recommendations, as well as implications for longer term training needs. © 2016 American Psychological Association.

Language: en

Keywords

Suicide; Death; Training; Psychotherapy; Postvention