What happens if I tell my therapist I want to kill myself?

[E_]

I'm worried about being sent somewhere I don't want to be. Is it OK to tell your therapist everything? 

Will they let me just leave the appointment and go home? Can I stop going to sessions if I choose? 

[Sophie_M]

Hey E_,

Thank you for sharing this question with us. We're really glad you could open up about this here.

It's really important to speak about thoughts of suicide when they arise. Due to privacy laws, this information remains confidential. Your therapist cannot tell anyone anything you tell them, however, they do have a duty of care if someone states they are at imminent risk of suicide. If you are not in any immediate danger, this does not fall into this category - thinking about suicide and actually having a plan to do something are two different issues.

We are reaching out to you privately to offer our support, and we hope you can continue to share what's going on for you here. If you feel like talking to one of our counsellors (phone or webchat), these calls are also confidential. However, if you do disclose an immediate risk, we will to work with you to keep you safe.

We also want to encourage you to have a look at our suicide safety planning app called Beyond Now. You can even go through it with one of our counsellors, or with Lifeline if you like.

Thanks so much for starting this conversation, E_. We hope to hear from you soon.

Kind regards, 

Sophie M

[smallwolf]

I can only speak to my experience and not for anyone else obviously. And in the space here I cannot give you setup each conversation to make it easier to understand. All I can say is that I have spoken about this matter with my GP, psychologist and psychiatrist. I can also say that I found it to be a difficult to start and to talk about, and the reason why I will leave out of here. I am probably lucky here in that my professional support is that, they care about me. Perhaps the greatest thing if that is possible was that with the help of my psychologist I was able to create a safety plan and found reasons to live. Take from this what you will. It is only my story....