Confidential Grief Specialist for Therapists
What is Confidential Grief?
Definition: Confidential grief describes the secrecy of mental health professionals’ pain and grief when losing a client to suicide because we feel we cannot talk about it.
Out of fear, shame, and perceived judgement from our peers, mental health professionals don’t feel safe to share that they are going through grief and loss, and thus attempt to grieve in private. It also feels confidential because client matters remain confidential, which means we can’t share our experience as openly as if it was a loss from a different part of our lives. All of these things add up to an experience where clinicians are suppressing their emotions, attempting to compartmentalize their grief, and could result in them leaving the field due to the lack of support and resulting burnout.
Adverse Psychological Events (APEs)
Losing a client to suicide is one of many Adverse Psychological Events (APEs) that affect mental health professionals. In 2023, I coined Adverse Psychological Events (APEs) as stressful, life altering events that create shifts in functioning personally and professionally and impact professional identity and clinical work over time. The list of APEs for mental health professionals includes client suicide, client death, client violence, subpoena, and grievance. There are many reasons to track and understand the impact of APEs in our field, including:
Support clinician burnout prevention and address compassion fatigue
Normalize the messy side of clinical work/risks and humanness within the field
Identify trends in the mental health industry including career longevity
Inform supervisors and mental health leaders of clinician considerations
Provide support and tools for professionals in various mental health settings
What is a Confidential Grief Specialist?
Someone who creates safe spaces for mental health professionals to process their shock, grief, and loss after a client suicide. This could occur in one-on-one therapy or consultation, as well as group processing if appropriate. As a Confidential Grief Specialist, I have a mission to shape how mental health leadership responds to clinician loss so that the response can feel empowered, supportive, and compassionate instead of shaming, blaming, and chalked full of confusing messages to “cover your ass” and “keep going” in the face of grief.
Why Me?
I am part of the statistic, the stat that says 1 in 4 therapists will have a client die by suicide within their career. Almost immediately after my client died, I knew I wanted to help other therapists through this career-altering experience. I have been a suicide assessment trainer to hundreds of therapists over the years and plan to continue putting my heart and soul into all my trainings, even as I identify as a therapist survivor. Instead of hiding in my own confidential grief, I wrote a book capturing the experiences of several therapists after client loss to suicide, normalizing months of stress symptoms, grief, and questioning their worth as mental health professionals. My book Moving From ALERT to Acceptance: Helping Clinicians Heal from Client Suicide is full of tips for post-traumatic growth and healing, as well as ideas for mental health leadership to prevent further harm to clinicians. I hope you’ll check it out!
I hope you’ll reach out to with me if you are needing additional support. I want to create a space where you feel met with abundant compassion and zero judgement after your client loss. Contact me knowing you don’t have to heal from client suicide alone.
Complete our anonymous survey on your experience with APEs as a mental health professional and see our survey findings below!
Adverse psychological events survey Findings
It is bittersweet to see how many mental health professionals have been touched by Adverse Psychological Events (APEs) in their careers and continue to demonstrate resilience. Here are some of the findings from our APEs survey, which current represents 75 mental health professionals and counting!
