The suicidal crisis in adolescents and young adults
Sessions
06/10/26
07/10/26
The suicidal crisis in adolescents and young adults
Understanding and assessing it to intervene better within a systemic and family approach.
In a context marked by the increase in suicidal crises among adolescents and young adults, the therapeutic response cannot remain centred on the individual alone. The suicidal crisis is part of a complex dynamic in which individual factors, psychological vulnerabilities, life contexts, family relationships and environmental resources interact.
The systemic and family approach broadens the understanding of the crisis by taking into account interactions, places, loyalties, modes of communication, secrets, the unspoken and the modes of regulation specific to the family system.
This two-day training provides theoretical, clinical and methodological landmarks for identifying the suicidal crisis, assessing risk, recognising individual and family factors of vulnerability and protection, and intervening from a systemic perspective. It also covers post-crisis support, upstream prevention and postvention issues with families bereaved by suicide.
Why this training
A suicidal crisis in an adolescent or young adult cannot be understood from the isolated subject alone. It unfolds within interactions, belongings, family places, vulnerabilities and resources that call for a broader reading.
What it brings
Landmarks for assessing risk with more finesse, conducting a crisis interview, involving relatives in an attuned way, strengthening protective factors and building more workable therapeutic responses.
What you work on
Prevention, intervention, post-crisis support and postvention, with systemic tools transferable to clinical and institutional practice.
Target skills
- Understand the complexity of the suicidal crisis in adolescents and young adults.
- Identify risk, vulnerability and protective factors at the individual, family and contextual levels.
- Recognise the relational configurations likely to aggravate or contain the crisis.
- Understand the contributions of the systemic approach and family therapy to prevention and intervention.
- Know how to conduct a suicidal-crisis interview from an individual and family perspective.
- Mobilise systemic tools in assessment, post-crisis support and prevention.
- Build a shared prevention plan and concrete safety landmarks with the family.
- Support a family after a suicide attempt or in the context of bereavement by suicide.
Intended audience and prerequisites
This training is aimed at professionals who work with adolescents, young adults and families and wish to strengthen their capacity for assessment and intervention in suicidal-crisis situations.
Rania Nasr Saliba
Psychotherapist for adults, couples and families, member and trainer at Le Lien Systémique, Lebanon.
Her approach combines clinical reading, relational understanding and the mobilisation of systemic tools to intervene in crisis situations with more precision, containment and attunement.
This training draws on a practice attentive to family dynamics, contextual vulnerabilities and the resources of the relational system, to help professionals assess and accompany the crisis with more accuracy.
A 2-day journey
The programme follows a progression from understanding the suicidal crisis to risk assessment, then to intervention, prevention and postvention.
Understanding the suicidal crisis within a systemic and family approach
- Presentation of the objectives and progression of the training
- Social representations, historical landmarks, definitions and general data on suicide among young people
- Explanatory theories of suicidal behaviour
- Risk, vulnerability and protective factors at the individual and family levels
- A systemic reading of the suicidal crisis in adolescents and young adults
- Contributions of the major systemic models: structural, transgenerational, strategic, Milan school
- Enmeshed and disengaged families, triangulations and invisible loyalties
- Secrets, the unspoken, family myths and transgenerational traumas
- The suicidal symptom as a mode of communication, alert or relational regulation
Assessing, preventing and intervening
- The suicidal-crisis process
- Landmarks for assessing suicidal risk
- The crisis interview: stance, content, vigilance and coordination with the entourage
- Secondary prevention after a suicide attempt: clinical landmarks and principles of family intervention
- The post-crisis family interview: safety, welcoming emotions, defusing shame and misunderstandings
- Co-constructing a prevention plan with the young person and their relatives
- Developing shared safety tools, including a family prevention map
- Primary prevention upstream of the crisis and the role of support networks
- Postvention: supporting a family bereaved by suicide
- Integration of therapeutic tools: narrative genogram, circular questions and symbolic rituals
- Synthesis of learning, clinical and ethical perspectives, immediate evaluation
Teaching methods
- Illustrated theoretical presentations
- Clinical vignettes
- Case studies in small groups
- Role-playing
- Reflective exercises
- Experiential sequences and simulations
- Exchange time around professional practices
Practicalities and assessment
- Total duration: 14 hours over 2 days
- Format: online training by videoconference
- Positioning questionnaire before the training
- Active participation, situation analyses and simulations during the training
- Assessment of learning and satisfaction questionnaire after the training
Approach and tools used
- A systemic and family reading of the crisis
- Identifying vulnerabilities and protective factors
- Crisis interview from an individual and family perspective
- Shared prevention plan
- Family prevention map
- Narrative and transgenerational genogram
- Circular questions and symbolic rituals
A short, dense training directly transferable to practice
Registration includes participation in the 2 live training days by videoconference, access to the replay and the teaching materials useful for integration work.
The training is designed for professionals who want solid landmarks, precise assessment criteria and concrete systemic tools to intervene more accurately in suicidal-crisis situations.
Accessibility and further information
Wherever possible, the training can be adapted to participants' specific needs. Particular needs can be communicated in advance, in particular via the positioning questionnaire.
Complexe Systémique
2, rue Coysevox, Bureau 3
69001 Lyon, France
Phone: +33 6 82 25 91 01
Email: contact@complexe-systemique.com
