The Call of Darkness - Managing Suicidality in Clinical Practice

Presenter: Dr Lawrence Hedges, PhD., Psy.D, ABPP

In this seminar Dr Hedges will draw on empirical research and outline promising treatment approaches informed by a range of significant theorists. He will present a Relational Listening approach for treating and managing suicidality.

In the past three decades much has been learned about the dynamics of suicide and promising treatment approaches have been advanced that are slowly yielding clinical as well as empirical results. Dr. Hedges puts forth a Relational Listening approach regarding the origins of suicidality in a relational/developmental context and will consider their implications for treating, and managing suicidality. Dr Hedges discusses accurate assessment, thorough documentation, appropriate standards of care and liability management

Dr. Hedges turns his attention to the topic of suicide both generally and specifically in how it relates to the impact of therapists' work with their clients. The workshop aims to remove some of the mystery and fear surrounding the topic of suicide, making it easier to approach the topic and work with clients in the consulting room especially with those suffering from their own Call of Darkness. He notes: "I came to realize that the Relational Listening approach that targets and allows a here and-now therapeutic unpacking or re-living of primal emotional relatedness experience can provide the theory and inter-subjective approach that suicidologists have been searching so long for.”

Dr Hedges states his key thesis as: “A Relational Listening Approach that explains how past relational traumas impact current relational contexts can shed fresh light on the many issues surrounding suicidality.” Dr Hedges is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in private practice in Orange, California and specialises in the training of psychotherapists. He has consulted or served as expert witness on more than 400 complaints, many in the area of suicide. He is director of the Listening Perspectives Study Center and the founding director of the Newport Psychoanalytic Institute in Tustin, California where he is a supervising and training psychoanalyst. He is an Assistant Professor at The University of California Irvine Medical School, Department of Psychiatry and was awarded honorary membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association in 2015. Dr. Hedges is author of numerous papers and books on the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy including: Listening Perspectives in Psychotherapy, and Terrifying Transferences: Aftershocks of Childhood Trauma.