How do counsellors feel when...

[Daisychain]

This is something I have been meaning to ask for a while but didn't have the courage. I asked my therapist if any of her clients had committed suicide, she said she couldn't answer that because of confidentiality issues, I can completely understand that.

I'd like to know how do therapists feel when a client commits suicide? Do they feel they have failed the client? How does it affect them and their future counselling? Thanks in advance.

[Old Wolf]

I haven't had this happen to me and it's not something I've ever felt I wanted to do (suicide) but I have worked in teams where this has happened and have seen how devastated those close to the person who decided they could not go on any further felt. Because there is a drive within society to stop people committing suicide, a drive I at one point recognised in myself (the stopping others bit) and because one day it may well happen to someone I work with as a client I have given a lot of thought to this. As with most of life it is a very complex question. Some attempt suicide in the hope that they will be found and saved and will then be "heard". I feel it is sad when this is the case and the person is not found in time and sad that someone is at a point where they feel they have to risk all in order to feel heard. For those whose life is so unbearable that they would rather die and go on to make a serious attempt at ending it all I also feel sad - not so much sad that they have succeeded but sad that they found themselves alone in such a low "place" that that was the only option they felt they had. I remember someone I worked with saying "we should section these people before they get a chance to committ suicide" and I found myself thinking, hold on a moment, who exactly are we trying to protect here, the person trying to end it all or are we trying to defend the "helper" from their own sense of guilt?
At this point in time the conclusion I have come to is this: If someones life is so unbearable, so full of pain, so distressed then what right have I to force them to stay alive and in such torture? However I do feel that as someone who loves life in all its diversity, including other people, I do have a responsibility, no, a desire, a need that arises from that love to, if at all possible, help that person move on from that terrible place of despair to one where they no longer need to escape by ending their life, where life is once more bearable and hopefully, eventually, even enjoyable. So, in short - don't try to stop someone who needs to committ suicide but try to help them move to a "place" where they no longer wish to. I think, no I feel that if I ever had a client committ suicide I would feel a great loss first and foremost and also a sense of haveing failed - failed at finding a way to help them move along to a better "place" within this life. Of course, as with most things in this life I can never know what it would really be like until such time as it happened and I sincerely hope it never does and I never do!!!
BW,
Old Wolf

[shrinknightmare]

I asked my psych this and she told me she had a person do it and she told the manner in which they did it and what they were suffering from and that she had to identify the body.

I was thinking of asking the same question.