United Survivors (United Suicide Survivors International) hosts a webinar on “Life Saving Knowledge: How Stress Response and Trauma Relate to Suicide.”
Many suicide attempt survivors have described the moments prior to their attempt as an “out of body” experience and the feeling that they were not in complete control of their actions in those moments. (Others have described it differently.) They have in some instances also described a sense of “snapping out of it” as soon as they had made the attempt. Kevin Hines so clearly describes his first thoughts after jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge as “instant regret.” While this certainly is not the case for all people, it is prevalent enough to warrant further exploration, understanding and discussion.
So what exactly is happening in the brain of someone when they make a suicide attempt and how does this information have the ability to help us save lives?
Join us as Joanna Bridger of SafetyHopeHealing.com explains the mechanisms occurring in the brain of someone before, during and after a suicide attempt. Joanna will also help us understand how a history of trauma deeply impacts these mechanisms and increases risk for suicidal intensity and a suicide attempt.
Dr. Ursula Whiteside, founder of NowMattersNow.org, will describe the incredibly intense emotional states that can drive suicide attempts from the lived experience and one theoretical perspective. She’ll help us understand why an approach, based in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, called Stop, Drop and Roll for being “On Fire” emotionally could help prevent suicide attempts.
Objectives
Participants will be able to explain:
- neurological mechanisms activated during a highly stressful event
- how previous trauma impacts an individual’s stress response and therefore increases the potential risk for a suicide attempt
- the concept of being "On Fire" emotionally and proposed "Stop, Drop, and Roll" coping steps based on Dialectical Behavior therapy skills
More on the panelists
Joanna Bridger, LICSW is the Founder and Director of Safety, Hope, & Healing Counseling & Consulting where she provides counseling, critical incident response, consultation, and training for families, schools, and organizations. Joanna has worked with youth, families, adults, and communities that have experienced trauma and loss in a wide range of settings in the U.S. and abroad for more than 20 years. For ten years she was the Clinical Director for Riverside Trauma Center. Prior to that she worked for ten years with people experiencing homelessness and addiction. Joanna has an MSW from the University of Michigan with a concentration in Health, and a Certificate in Traumatic Stress Studies from the Trauma Center at JRI (now the Trauma Research Foundation) and is trained in a wide range of trauma and loss focused therapeutic modalities. safetyhopehealing.com
Dr. Ursula Whiteside, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist, CEO of NowMattersNow.org, Clinical Faculty at the University of Washington, and VP of United Survivors. As a researcher, she has been awarded grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Clinically, she began her training with Dr. Marsha Linehan in 1999 and later served as a DBT-adherent research therapist on a NIMH-funded clinical trial led by Dr. Linehan. Dr. Whiteside is a group and individual certified DBT clinician. Now, she treats high-risk suicidal clients in her small private practice in Seattle using DBT and caring contacts. Dr. Whiteside is also national faculty for the Zero Suicide initiative. As a person with lived experience, she strives to decrease the gap between "us and them" and to ensure that the voices of those who have been there are included in all relevant conversations: nothing about us without us.
nowmattersnow.org, @ursulawhiteside
Sarah Gaer is Master's Level Clinician with 23 years experience in mental health care. Her graduate degree work focused on military veterans and trauma. She spent 9 years as a Suicide Prevention Specialist focused on men in the middle years and first responders for Riverside Trauma Center (RTC). Sarah has trained 1,000+ first responders in Massachusetts and is a QPR Master Trainer. She remains on RTC’s trauma team. She was the Senior Team Leader for MassSupport Network, a FEMA funded COVID-19 Crisis Counseling Program (CCP) and Team Leader for a CCP in 2011 when tornadoes impacted MA. Sarah currently works as a consultant in suicide prevention and trauma recovery, spearheading long term recovery efforts at a medical facility deeply impacted by the pandemic. She has presented at national and international conferences. Her writings have been published by SAMHSA and the Good Men Project. She authored the novel The Price and co-authored Guts, Grit & The Grind, a men’s mental health series.
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