[The suicide conference. An instrument for support of involved teams after inpatient suicides]

Abstract

This is a report on the authors' experience over two years in developing a new way to deal with patient suicides in a District Psychiatric Hospital. The main aim of the Suicide Counselling Session is to help the involved hospital ward teams to overcome the strain, doubt and psychological burden often caused by the suicide of a patient. The authors describe the institutional conditions and setting in which a Suicide Counselling Session takes place. The method is characterised by a special attitude and the ideas of "Reflecting Team" to bring the involved stress factors into the open.