This is going to be a work in progress.
So clients ask me – have I had a client commit suicide?
(Some initial thoughts/questions from a therapist who works in the addiction field and has been asked this question more than once…)
Yes, I have lost (a former) client to suicide. But would he have shot himself if he could have kept drinking? He’d stated to his dad that he didn’t want to live if he couldn’t drink.
Do you consider an overdose suicide? If I tell you my client OD’d but I know he didn’t want to die, would I have to convince you, (or myself) that my client truly OD’d but he definitely did not want to die?
Some family members assume and tell me, that I likely knew their son/daughter better than anyone else – better than they did. What if that were true? And how do the law/ethics of my license curb what I could even say about that?
That’s about all I have to say at the moment.
Megan Hanson Psychotherapy 