Last March, the NY Farm Net (a support organization for NY farmers), in partnership with the state’s Office of Mental Health, launched a statewide Cognitive Therapy for Suicidal Patients training program for mental health professionals. Why is this interesting? Here in the states, we don’t often see statewide or nationwide efforts to train therapists in evidence-based approaches like Cognitive Therapy (developed by Aaron T. Beck, M.D in the 1960s). So we think it’s great that a community based non-profit like Farm Net took the initiative to offer initial CT training to mental health professionals and disseminate the program statewide in partnership with NY State Offices. The day-long training program in CT for Suicidal Patients was offered at over 40 psychiatric and non-psychiatric training sites statewide, with follow-up question and answer sessions via listserv.
To find out more about how CT can help prevent suicide, see last year’s New York Times article, “Talk Therapy Succeeds in Reducing Suicide Risk.”