Understand Suicide

My guests today are Nicole Siegfried and Caroline Nichols. In this interview, they help us figure out how parents and families can help kids who struggle with suicidal thoughts, ideation, and previous attempts. This interview is the fourth of a week-long series, during which I will be publishing at least one episode every day directly from the 57th conference of the American Association of Suicido...

My guest today is Joan Hoff. She has been facilitating loss groups for over thirty years, including support groups for children, families, and suicide loss survivors. Joan lost her husband to suicide and in this interview, she shares with us her experience with her own grief and why she believes in the healing power of groups. This interview is the third of a week-long series, during which I will...

My guest today is the therapist Khara Croswaite and the topic is "When therapists lose a client to suicide." What does the grief look like? Who do we go to? What helps? What about the shame of sharing with colleagues that you have lost a client in this manner?  Khara knows some of those answers because she recently lost a client to suicide and she has been vulnerable and brave enough to...

My guest today is Joanne Harpel, president of Coping after suicide and executive producer of the film “Talking Out Loud: Teen suicide loss, a Conversation.” She lost her brother Stephen to suicide in 1993. Since then, Joanne has been working on prevention and postvention, particularly with support groups.  Our focus today is teen bereavement, a topic very rarely explored even here on my podcast. I...

This week, beginning tomorrow (Tuesday), I will be publishing at least one episode every day directly from the 57th conference of the American Association of Suicidology. Join me daily for interviews with key speakers, researchers, and loss survivors. Are you looking for an online suicide loss support group? Join mine:  https://t.ly/gYW-G ⁠⁠ Find my book "Understanding Suicide: Living with lo...

After a series of losses, including the death of her mother and her husband’s suicide, Michelle Collins combined the tools she had collected as a yoga therapist and wellness coach and studies in positive psychology and neuroscience to turn post-traumatic stress disorder into post-traumatic growth and resilience.  She is the author of two books: “Surviving Spousal or partner suicide loss: A Mindful...

Are you looking for an online Suicide loss support group? We all know how heartbreaking this kind of loss is, and how we tend to isolate ourselves because we believe nobody will either listen to us or understand what we're going through.  That’s when a support group can be a source of comfort, familiarity, and compassion, no matter where you are in your grief journey. And you might just find some...

Richard Brockman is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Attending Clinical Psychiatrist at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. When he was seven years old he found his mother’s body after she died of suicide. This traumatizing experience re-shaped the narrative of his life. In his book, "Life After Death: Surviving Suicide,” Dr. B...

Kristyna and Veronika Delmar are from the Czech Republic and they lost their mother to suicide a little over a year ago. In this interview, they share with us the different paths they took to live through their grief.  Kristyna tried to “learn" everything she could about the topic by reading books and trying to get in touch with people who were going through the same kind of loss. Veronika wa...

From time to time, some of my listeners contacted me for therapy but in the past, I have not been able to accept new clients due to a lengthy waiting list. That has recently changed because I just opened my own practice, so I am taking new patients and have a few available spots. If you are searching for a therapist and you live in Oregon, in the US, contact me. I give a free 15-minute consultatio...

Suzanne Anderson lost her husband David to suicide and with it, her life as she knew it. As it happens in many cases, after his death, she found out secrets he kept from her, so she had to rebuild not only her life but her internal experience of what they had shared and built together. In this interview, she shares her path and how her spiritual beliefs helped her through it. Suzanne is the author...

Among specialists, there has been a growing concern about suicidal ideation among long COVID patients. In this interview, Dr. Jim Jackson shares his experience with long COVID patients and the struggles they experience when searching for answers, recognition, and proper treatment. Dr. Jim Jackson, PhD, is a neuropsychologist at Vanderbilt Medical Center and one of the world's leading authoriti...

My guest today, Michael, is a murder-suicide survivor. Nine years ago, his wife took the life of their two daughters, Kennedy, 13, and Bella, 6 years old. Then, she took her own life. In this interview, Michael talks for the first time about his experience, the impact it had on his life, how he dealt with suicidal thoughts after his losses, and what helped him stay alive. Trigger warning: This epi...

Alexandra Wyman lost her husband to suicide in August of 2020 and like many of us, she was numbed, in shock, then she was filled with questions. Now, almost three years later, she has found some answers, which she shares in her book "The Suicide Club: What to Do When Someone You Love Chooses Death.”  In this interview, she talks about her journey, what helped her, and what got in the way, and...

Dr. Laura Shannonhouse, Ph. D., is an Associate Professor at Georgia State University. In this interview, we talk about the results from her latest research regarding suicide among older adults.   She wanted to know if a small dose of sincere connection would improve mental health outcomes in this population and the findings are shared with us in this conversation. This interview is part of a seri...

Leeann Sherman is the president of the American Association of Suicide Prevention, AAS. In this interview, we discuss the role of AAS in the field of Suicidology, her personal involvement in this area, how we’ve evolved in terms of stigma and empirical knowledge, and much more. This interview is part of a series that covers the American Association of Suicidology's conference, which is taking...

Sarah Gaer is a loss survivor and advocate who works with the concept of soul exhaustion. Her keynote today was a "wow" moment for me because it gave language to something most of us feel but have no way to describe. I'm sure many of you will feel similar when you hear what she has to say. This interview is part of a series that covers the American Association of Suicidology's co...

This week, the American Association of Suicidology will hold its annual conference in Portland and I will be posting daily interviews, so come back every day because I will be talking about many topics of interest to you. Check the agenda of the conference here: https://bit.ly/3mAuEEq Find my book "Understanding Suicide: Living with Loss, paths to Prevention:” https://amzn.to/3XyxQwR Visit my...

Marie lost her husband, Joe, in June 2020. They had been together for thirty years and were also business partners, so as you may imagine, after his death, she had to pick up the pieces of her life. In this episode, she shares her journey, including the family secret he kept from her for years and its impact on his mental health. “ He could not come to terms with what his memory was revealing to h...

On my 100th episode celebration, I interviewed Dr. Kirk Honda, a therapist and host of the podcast Psychology in Seattle. He has a Doctorate in Psychology, a Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy, has been working as a psychotherapist since 1996, and he’s been a professor since 1998. In the first part of this interview, Kirk talks about his experience with suicidal patients, as well as the theor...

This interview was given to Georgena Grace, CEO of the Integrated Wellbeing Institute. Georgena knows suicide from a personal perspective: she lost both her brother and son to suicide. She currently works with grief patients and trains mental health professionals. Find the Integrated Wellbeing Institute: https://integratedwellbeinginstitute.com/ Watch this interview on Georgina’s YouTube channel:...

This is a quick request: Could you please go to YouTube and subscribe to my channel? It’s called Understand Suicide. This way I can maybe monetize the channel and pay someone to edit the videos and audios. It would mean a lot to me and I would be able to do more interviews. As you know, I don’t have ads, sponsors, or Patreon, because I just never found anything that would be suitable due to the to...

In this episode, I talk to Stacey Freedenthal, who just came out with a wonderful new book entitled "Loving Someone with Suicidal Thoughts: What Family, Friends, and Partners Can Say and Do.” I’m sure this will be tremendously helpful to those who have loved ones struggling with suicidal thoughts and ideation. Watch this interview on my YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3whWdn6 Find Stacey’s bo...

In this conversation, Dr. Doreen Marshal, Ph. D., vice President of Mission Engagement at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, talks about how to avoid - or at least diminish - stress during the holiday season. Doreen has a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from Georgia State University and a master’s degree in Professional Counseling. If you want to support my channel, buy me a coffee...

In this episode, Army Major General, Mark Graham talks to us about the loss of his two sons, Jeffrey and Kevin, one of them being of suicide. He tells us how his family dealt with the shock and pain brought up by Kevin’s suicide, how it affected each member of the family, and how they came together to heal from the compounded grief of losing both kids within a short period of one year. He also sha...