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Re: Adults who may display suicidal tendencies |
Dear Helena,
I hope you are not too disappointed by the slow response to your question. It is quite common for young people and adults to think about suicide and self harm. The challenge for advisers is to recognise whether their mentioning this to us is simply to test out how shockable, or how genuine we are, or something more serious that requires us to exercise our duty of care. If our experience or intuition prompts us that it is the latter then we may suggest perhaps they contact the Samaritans or their GP. Would they like to use our phone to make an appointment? Then when you are displaying unconditional positive regard, you may say that a drop-in Careers Resource Centre information centre is not the best place for dealing with such issues, but you are always willing to offer them a listening ear for a few minutes when things are quieter. Sometimes when people are inextremis, Peter Daws used to say we may be wrong to think first of making an appropriate referral, but have to simply get stuck in and relate to them as one human being reaching out to help another. Put another way, you will always be safe if your balance the cognitions of your mind with the feelings of your heart. |
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| Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:06 am |
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