Below is a peer response to question below question asked. Read post, reply with your professional experiences and feedback regarding their posts. How have your experiences resonated with their ideas? What can you add to their ideas, building upon the connections you have made to the material so far?

Critique the Kundla, Sommers-Flanagan, & Governors Statue University video on suicide assessment, stating what deeply resonates with you. Note the use of terms no longer used in the field. How do you think current terms developed and why is this shift important?

I really found the video very interesting. I think it is important to make our clients feel comfortable about discussing suicide with us. I found it is true people do think about killing themselves, but would never really do it. When the time comes that I have to do suicide assessments, I now know how to conduct those assessments so the client will feel comfortable about discussing this with me. By engaging them to feel like they have a choice in what they say and how they say it to me. By making them feel this is a normal topic of conversation that I always have.

I also understand why they changed the term harm to self. There are individuals who do harm themselves but do not want to actually kill themselves. Sometimes people do cut themselves as mentioned in the video. Individuals who do this type of behavior are usually under emotional stress and are trying to cope. We will never really know until we complete an assessment however.

I also thought it was very interesting to learn that African American women have the lowest rates of suicide than anyone and that Native American teens have a higher rate than the Native American older population. It is also important that we remember that veterans also have a higher rate of suicide as well. It is difficult for some to readjust to life outside the military and if they have PTSD plays a part as well.

All in all I found the video very interesting and informative in how to ask questions about suicide with clients. I thought he did a great job in explaining how to ask the questions and why we ask them in that manner. The more comfortable our clients feel with us the more information we will gather.