My guest this week is Dr. Kathryn Gordon. Katie’s a clinical psychologist and she recently wrote The Suicidal Thoughts Workbook (affiliate link), so our discussion centered around suicide. This is a painful topic that touches so many of us, and it leaves such a hole in our lives when we lose someone to suicide. A friend of mine took his own life a few years ago, and I still think about it nearly every day, and wonder what was going on in his mind and in his heart that led him to that place of desperation. I’ve also had my own battles with wanting to end my life, when I was in the depths of a chronic illness and depression and started to believe it’d be better for everyone if I just went away.

As you’ll hear in our discussion, I really appreciate how Katie approaches the issue of suicide. It’s a scary thing when we know someone is thinking about ending their life, and it’s easy to go into crisis-management mode, and really lose sight of the person in front of us. Katie’s focus is on staying really close to the person, and inviting them to tell her more—really sending the message that there’s nothing defective about us when we’re feeling suicidal, and this is exactly the response that’s missing so often in discussions of suicide.

I think the mental health world by and large has made the mistake of emphasizing safety over humanity when suicide is in the room. I’ve heard this from many of my patients and in response to blog posts I’ve written about suicide—that nobody wants to bring it up because they’re afraid they’re going to be treated as a risk to be managed, and that they’re going to be locked up against their will, instead of being treated as a person in pain who needs more connection in that moment.

Now, of course safety is important, and we want to do everything we can to help ourselves or our loved one or our patient to stay alive. But we might need to remind ourselves not to lose sight of the bigger picture, that someone who’s suicidal doesn’t want to live because they’re in pain. So it’s not just a question of “what can we do to keep you alive?” We have to ask how we can help someone to move through the pain and find the connection that makes life worth living. And that’s exactly what Katie’s book is all about, so I’m really pleased to share this conversation with you.

Topics we discussed included:

• The crucial factors that lead to suicide
• When pain exceeds connectedness
• The capacity to attempt suicide, when the desire to die overwhelms the will to live
• My own grandfather’s suicide
• Who Katie’s book might not be for
• The “present absence” created by a suicide
• Distinguishing fear of self-harm in OCD from actual desire to end one’s life
• How common suicidal thoughts are
• The importance of intervening as early as possible with suicidality
• My reservations about much of the mental health world’s response when a person discloses that they’re suicidal
• Meeting the suicidal person vs. reacting to the sense of danger
• The humanizing response to suicidality in Katie’s book
• Creating a safety plan in the context of suicide
• Important risk factors for suicide
• Helpful and unhelpful responses to suicide
• Katie’s personal experiences with others’ suicidal thoughts and actions
• Activities that can quickly reduce the intensity of emotional pain
• The challenge to complete a workbook when feeling really down and suicidal
• The imperative of finding an alternative perspective that rings true for us
• The belief that it’s futile to remove a suicidal person’s intended means of suicide

Kathryn H. Gordon, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

Prior to working as a therapist, Katie was a professor for ten years, and was recognized as an Inspiring Teacher for her classes about psychopathology, empirically-supported therapy, and cultural diversity.

Katie is a mental health researcher who has published over eighty scientific articles and book chapters on suicidal behavior, disordered eating, and related topics.

She co-hosts the Psychodrama Podcast and blogs for Psychology Today.

Find Katie online at her website, follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and send her an email here.