Mitigating Suicide Risk With Single Session 'Brief Skills for Safer Living'

Brief-SfSL is a single-session individual therapy adaptation of the core goals/principles of the 20-week SfSL group therapy. Brief-SfSL incorporates the SfSL guiding principles of emphasizing safety, attending to the therapeutic relationship, recognizing the participant as the expert in their own experience, taking a trauma-informed approach, working with emotions while recognizing the role of alexithymia, and incorporating solution-focused concepts. The goal is to increase a person's understanding and capacity to engage in what would enable them to keep safe, even if thoughts of suicide are present. The intervention procedure is dynamic, but includes 4 core tasks: 1) understanding the individual's suicidal experience, 2) skills building, 3) developing a safety plan, and 4) identifying obstacles to enacting or engaging with the safety plan.