Suicide Prevention Awareness Month: Creativity, Connection, and Renewal for Clinicians
Each September, Suicide Prevention Awareness Month asks us to reflect on the lives lost, clients in pain, and the ongoing work of prevention. For those in the mental health field, this month brings layered emotions—grief for those we could not save, compassion for those suffering, and sometimes, exhaustion from carrying these stories.
As mental health professionals, we are aware of the statistics and risk factors. But beyond clinical manuals and safety plans, suicide prevention remains deeply human—rooted in connection, meaning, creativity, and the courage to voice what feels unspeakable.
Creativity as a Protective Factor
Emerging research continues to show what many of us have long witnessed in practice: creative expression can be a powerful protective factor against suicide, anxiety, and depression.
Art, writing, music, and movement provide ways to metabolize and transmute overwhelming feelings.
Creative practices foster resilience by enabling clients to construct meaning, create narratives of survival, and reclaim their agency.
Group-based creative experiences, community murals, spoken word, ritual, and theater can help restore a sense of belonging and reduce feelings of isolation.
For clinicians, weaving creativity into our interventions does not mean replacing evidence-based care; it means expanding the toolkit to include modalities that address both the mind and the soul.
Breaking Stigma Within the Field
While our profession has advanced in reducing the stigma of seeking support, the stigma around suicide itself still lingers even within clinical spaces.
We do not always talk openly about our fears when a client discloses suicidal thoughts. We do not always process the shame or helplessness after a suicide loss in our caseloads. And at times, suicide becomes something discussed through the lens of liability and risk, rather than through compassion and human connection.
Part of suicide prevention is changing the culture in our own field:
Normalizing conversations about our emotional responses as clinicians.
Creating peer support systems where suicide loss and near-misses can be processed without shame.
Using creativity like writing, art, or storytelling to name and transform the silence around suicide, even among professionals.
The Weight on Clinicians
Clinical care and suicide prevention are demanding, soul-deep work. Many of us carry client stories of struggle, attempts, or loss. Over time, this can lead to compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious traumatization.
This Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, let us not only recommit to prevention for our clients, but also to renewal for ourselves:
Engaging in creative practices like journaling, painting, dance, or music can serve as lifelines for clinicians, restoring the inner resources needed to keep showing up.
Carving out time for embodied rituals, mindfulness, and time in nature reconnects us to the living world beyond the therapy room.
Joining professional communities that foster openness and vulnerability can prevent isolation among providers.
Sustaining suicide prevention work means therapists must also sustain themselves.
Bringing these threads together, we see that effective suicide prevention is more than following protocols.
This Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, may we remember:
Renewal is not selfish; it is essential.
Creativity is not a luxury; it is a lifeline.
Speaking openly with clients, colleagues, and communities dismantles the stigma that still surrounds suicide.
Let us come together this month to actively support one another, share creative approaches, and openly discuss our experiences. As part of Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, we invite you to reach out to a colleague, contribute to your professional community, and prioritize your own renewal as you continue this vital work. Together, let’s make clinician wellbeing a visible priority and strengthen our collective commitment to meaningful suicide prevention.
by Dr. Amy Vail and Alli Fischenich