fPc | The Foundation for Psychotherapy and Counselling |
15th February 2025 Lecture
My Fatal Mistake. Guilt, blame and the role of the clinician in a patient suicide: Understanding suicide and the profound impact it has on those bereaved. - Dr Rachel Gibbons
Chair: Despina Catselli
To be held online from 10.00am to 12.00noon on Saturday 15th February 2025, by Zoom. Attendance is free of charge for all FPC members and will count as 2 hours CPD. The lecture will not be recorded. To book a place please email admin@thefpc.org.uk
Suicide is something that is at the back of our minds in a lot of our work with patients. Given its importance and the fear that it generates, it is surprising that there is very little known about its nature or aetiology. This talk aims to confront the ‘Truth’ about suicide. It will look at the understanding of suicidal states of mind and test this by looking at real cases. What leads someone to take their own life? Can it be prevented? The profound effect the suicide of a patient has on the clinician working with them will be discussed. Knowledge gained about how to process and work with this trauma will be shared.
Dr Rachel Gibbons has worked in the NHS over the past 20 years in various psychiatric settings as a consultant psychiatrist and consultant medical psychotherapist. She is a psychoanalyst and group analyst and Chair of the Working Group on the Effect of Suicide and Homicide on Psychiatrists and Vice-Chair of the Psychotherapy Faculty, at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She has been working on suicide and homicide, and the impact on those bereaved including clincians over the last 16 years. She has recently had several papers published on the effect of suicide on clinicians, she is co-editor of the Royal College of Psychiatrists book ‘Seminars in the psychotherapies’. She led the development of the first global guidance for all mental health organisations for the pastoral care of staff following the death by suicide of a patient. This guidance is now in the new National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England.
She has been working on suicide over the last 15 years. She is the national expert in the United Kingdom on the Impact of Suicide and Homicide on Clinicians and has developed the first global guidance for mental health organisations for the pastoral care of clinicians following a death by suicide of a patient. She has led on research papers in this area with Prof Keith Hawton and the Oxford Centre for Suicide Research. She has had 5 papers published on the nature of suicide and the impact of suicide and homicide on clinicians. She was the first national Suicide Lead in has led in suicide prevention in many different environment including the London Transport Police. She has been facilitating a Suicide Group for consultant psychiatrists for the last 15 years. She is co-editor of the Royal College of Psychiatrists book ‘Seminars in the psychotherapies’.
Articles by Dr Rachel Gibbons
Understanding the psychodynamics of the pathway to suicide
Someone is to blame: the impact of suicide on the mind of the bereaved (including clinicians)