Individual Therapy Techniques With Adolescent Suicide Attempters (Fourth Column in a Series)

Many adolescent suicide attempters present with depressive symptoms & angry effect. In addition, they exhibit significant deficits in problem solving. Treatment programs that develop skills to address these problems along with highly structured cognitive approaches are discussed. The basic rationale for the techniques described is to move the adolescent away from thinking in all-or-none terms through reattribution of blame, decatastrophizing, & use of the “Feeling Thermometer” measurement tool.