Beyond the Crisis: Assessing and Responding to Acute and Chronic Suicidality
In this month's Morning Matters Lexi Mulee, LMHC-D, DBT Specialist, and Founder of Wise Mind Counseling, LLC will lead us through this practical training that equips clinicians and support staff to confidently assess acute and chronic suicide risk, including suicidality in the context of borderline personality disorder, emotional dysregulation, and chronic crisis patterns.
Assessing and responding to suicidality can become especially challenging when clients experience chronic suicidal ideation, emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, or personality disorders. Clinicians and support staff may struggle to distinguish an acute escalation from a client’s typical baseline, determine the appropriate level of intervention, and respond compassionately without unintentionally reinforcing crisis-driven patterns.
This practical training will help participants more confidently assess acute and chronic suicide risk, recognize meaningful changes in risk, and engage clients in direct and nonjudgmental conversations about suicide. Particular attention will be given to suicidality in borderline personality disorder, including the role of emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, attachment needs, and interpersonal stressors. Participants will also learn strategies for collaborative safety planning, involving families and community supports, determining when a higher level of care may be necessary, and developing a consistent team response that balances safety, validation, autonomy, and accountability.
Learning objectives
By the end of this 2.5-hour presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Differentiate chronic suicidal ideation from acute suicide risk by identifying changes in intent, planning, access to means, preparatory behaviors, impulsivity, protective factors, and deviation from an individual’s baseline.
2. Conduct a direct, compassionate, and clinically useful suicide risk assessment with individuals experiencing emotional dysregulation, chronic suicidality, or personality disorders.
3. Explain how characteristics commonly associated with personality disorders—including impulsivity, interpersonal sensitivity, rapidly shifting emotions, and recurrent crises—may influence suicide risk and its clinical presentation.
4. Select an appropriate response based on the individual’s current level of risk, including collaborative safety planning, increased outpatient support, involvement of family or community resources, referral to a higher level of care, or emergency intervention.
5. Apply validation, clear boundaries, and function-based interventions when responding to recurrent suicidal communication while continuing to assess and take every expression of suicidality seriously.
6. Identify strategies for creating a consistent, coordinated response among clinicians, staff members, families, and community supports that promotes safety without relying exclusively on hospitalization
*This is a free, virtual event
*CEs included for those who stay for the entire event
