The healing process for the multidisciplinary team: recovering post-inpatient suicide

1. With an inpatient suicide, the staff may experience grief for a variety of reasons. The staff member's perception of self as a competent mental health care provider may be destroyed. The caregiver may grieve the loss of an ideal. Some inpatient staff members mistakenly believe that suicide can always be prevented and that the multidisciplinary team can accurately assess all patients. 2. To successfully mourn a loss, Worden (1982) identified four tasks of grieving that must be completed: accept the reality of the loss; experience the pain of grief; adjust to an environment in which the deceased or lost object is missing; and withdraw emotional energy and reinvest it in another relationship. 3. Interventions to promote healing post-inpatient suicide must be aimed at individual caregivers and the multidisciplinary team. Individual caregivers will differ in their responses based on experiences, beliefs, values, and culture.