Posted by Dinah on February 4, 2003, at 13:44:30
In reply to Re: suicide contracts-lifelike and others, posted by judy1 on February 4, 2003, at 13:19:40
Yes, my therapist is always eager to offer the hospital, even if I just discuss ideation, not intent. I finally discussed how it made me feel like I needed to lie to him about it, and he told me that he didn't think the hospital was the best solution either, he was just using it to assess the strength of my intent. Hopefully, he'll choose better methods now.
If I remember correctly, doesn't your therapist work with a lot of high risk patients? Perhaps she feels like she needs to set limits to protect herself from burnout. If she works in group, it would seem like they could rotate on call, but if she works alone it might be overwhelming. My therapist gave me his cell phone number and told me to please call him day or night if I need him. Of course he knows I'm very unlikely to do so and generally only call during office hours. But I'd been his client for a long time at that point, and I don't think he does work with a lot of high risk clients. At first I was supposed to call the on call therapist or go to the emergency room, and I never did either. I think he realizes that the desire to keep from bothering him acts in a powerful way to control impulses.
Have you asked her about it?
poster:Dinah
thread:2438
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030203/msgs/2487.html