Deployment Psychology Blog

Staff Perspective: Suicide Postvention - Don’t Forget Clinician Survivors

Lisa French, Psy.D.

Clinicians are affected when a patient suicides.  We may all be affected differently.  Some of us may grieve the loss, some of us may question our competence, and some of us may fear seeing future suicidal or high-risk patients.  There are also confounding variables that may arise following the suicide event that can complicate or extend the grief process, including legal/ethical issues, administrative requirements, and clinic procedures to name a few. 

CDP News: Oct. 16, 2015

Welcome to this week’s edition of CDP News! We like to use this space to review recent happenings in and around the Center for Deployment Psychology, while also looking ahead to upcoming events. It was a shortened week due to the holiday on Monday, but we squeezed in plenty of events and we’ve got even more on the horizon!

Research Update: 15 Oct. 2015

The CDP's weekly research update contains the latest news, journal articles and useful links from around the web. Some of this week's topics include:

● Health Care: Assessment of DoD Suicide Prevention Processes (DoD OIG)
● Dual Diagnosis of Traumatic Brain Injury and Alcohol Use Disorder: Characterizing Clinical and Neurobiological Underpinnings.

Staff Perspective: Examining Exposure, Relaxation, and Rescription Therapy (EERT) for Nightmares

ERRT targets physiological, behavioral, cognitive aspects related to the development and maintenance of nightmares through a three-session treatment protocol. Each session is approximately 60 minutes and starts by providing psychoeducation about trauma, nightmares, and sleep hygiene, as well as teaching progressive muscle relaxation. The main emphasis is to provide relevant background information, modify maladaptive sleep habits, and to help patients gain proficiency with relaxation skills, such as progressive muscle relaxation.

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