Key takeaways
- Why fear-based, defensive practices (no-suicide contracts, default hospitalization) can harm clients and erode the therapeutic relationship
- Gold-standard evidence-based practices for suicide risk: collaborative safety planning, lethal means restriction counseling, CT-SP, DBT, and CAMS
- The three pillars of reducing malpractice liability: foreseeability, treatment planning, and follow-up and follow-through
- Clinician postvention: building a support plan for the possibility of losing a client to suicide
In this talk from the 2026 Grow Forward Provider Summit, clinical psychologist Blaire Ehret walks through what evidence-based suicide care looks like in practice, from collaborative safety planning and lethal means restriction counseling to suicide-specific treatments like cognitive therapy for suicide prevention (CT-SP), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS).
She explains why defensive, fear-based responses can undermine both client trust and clinical outcomes, how providers can lower malpractice liability through foreseeability, treatment planning, and follow-through, and why suicide is best addressed as the primary clinical issue rather than treated as a symptom of depression. The talk also opens up a topic the field rarely discusses: clinician postvention, or how mental health providers can prepare for and cope with the grief, self-blame, and isolation that can follow a client’s death by suicide.
