SUICIDE CONSULTATION: A PSYCHIATRIC SERVICE TO SOCIAL AGENCIES

The Suicide Prevention Center in Los Angeles, in its diagnostic and referral services focusing on the problem of suicide, has worked toward a community program of early detection of potentially suicidal individuals and location of suitable treatment services for them and has, in this endeavor, put considerable emphasis upon collaboration with social agencies.

In the course of this collaboration, the agencies have been accorded a consultation service providing evaluations of suicide risk, treatment indications and suitability for casework handling. The S.P.C. has received from the agencies increased cooperation and willingness to accept patients who under other circumstances might have been rejected, as well as an opportunity to disseminate knowledge about the phenomenon of suicide. An important factor in this collaboration has been the development of methods of sharing responsibility without taking control of the case from the agency.

One by-product of the consultation service has been the reexamination by the social agencies of their usual policies regarding such stereotyped categories as "severely disturbed," "psychotic" and "suicidal" clients.

The paper includes discussion of some of the criteria used in the consultation, case illustrations and examples of policy changes in community facilities.