The Importance of Building Hope
AMSR for Direct Care Staff in Inpatient SettingsOne of the things we really try to stress with our patients is that feeling of hope, either hope for their future, hope, themselves and getting better, it's really looking at what does that future look like and how can you get there. So it's so important to remember that clients have hope within them even if they're very high risk with suicidal ideations because they're coming to you as a therapist and telling you. The fact that they're coming to you and letting you know that they're suicidal means they have hope and they wanna live they're asking for help. Some patients will find it very overwhelming when you start going through things and, you know, when we say you've been through a lot, and then they'll focus on that.
And so finding hope in just those everyday moments is important and then focusing on those goals, making them small for the patients and just really giving them that hope that can grow with them and focusing on the good in their lives and not necessarily all the negative. The answer really allows the conversation to build hope in terms of, are we getting better this week, is the risk score. Have we found another potential trigger that we can avoid? How we found another positive, you know, factor that can keep us safe when we need to answer, really allows the ability to talk openly about it, see the transition of care, not just the hard stop of now I'm better. The aspects in the eight key domains really talks about what's going not so well.
We need to know that again. So we understand, you know, what are the triggers, what are the higher risk situations, and what are, what are the situations or emotions that that our patient needs to learn to cope through. But there's also an aspect of learning about strengths. And, and that's the, that's that hope conversation too of, you know, what, what are you able to do, or what does work well for you, or who is there for you that provides you with immense support and help foster that hope of if you could feel differently or if you started to feel differently, would you would you change that? If you if you got some relief, do you think you would want to pursue life or do other things? And I think that's the that's the hope switch, right? We we have to get at that of what if you can feel different.
And I don't say better. Right? I don't always say what if you can feel, you know, the happiest you've ever felt. Sometimes there's that incremental improvement or that little bit of light and hope is what can get them through that crisis.