Contextual-Conceptual Therapy
Guiding the Suicidal Person Using Maps, Models, & Metaphors
CONTEXTUAL-CONCEPTUAL THERAPY
Guiding the Suicidal Person
from the Medical Model to Maps and Metaphors
Traditional medical/psychiatric models approach the problem of suicidality from a variety of theoretical perspectives: biological, cognitive, psychodynamic, etc. However, practical interventions based on these theories often fail. Most suicidal persons who admit to years of counseling, hospitalizations, and medication say they will feel better for awhile but then feel twice as suicidal the next time they are in crisis. What this indicates is that the underlying problem, though changing form, never changes.
I have sought to understand the core experience of being suicidal by exploring the language of suicidal persons in the midst of suicidal crises. Through therapeutic processes with over 16,000 patients, I find that suicidal patients universally communicate about an existence in a bifurcated state where who they are to us is not who they are to themselves. The suicidal person is trapped in unknowingly finding ways to sustain both “selves” and this unreal, painful, disconnected state leads to a lethal spiral downwards—in such a bifurcated state, a place of solace cannot be sustained. As therapists, we unknowingly participate in this bifurcation by comforting or “stabilizing” them. They are thereby validated for a state, a self that is really not stable inside of them.
Reasoning, traditional cognitive-behavioral approaches and even medications may help for awhile but cannot really reach them. An indirect form of communication is needed to bypass the fierce intelligence and resistance which sustains this psychological and emotional trap. By utilizing metaphor and experiential methods, I have found ways to offer suicidal persons a stereoscopic perspective using metaphoric resonance to bypass the entrenched internal illogic that binds them.
I have integrated my learning and methods into a model of therapy derived from the suicidal persons’ own voices. Called Contextual-Conceptual Therapy: Guiding Suicidal Person, Using Maps, Models, & Metaphors, it has 4 stages and 32 complementary "assignments" available to tailor to the specific needs of each individual and their internal process and offer them a new pathway out of suicide, an intrinsic form of suicide prevention. This is designed to be adjunctive to traditional treatments and not replace them.
“Without metaphor change is impossible.
Metaphor draws the imagination into a new logic that
reveals the way to a new reality.”
- Nelle Morton
About Fredric Matteson:
I work as a therapist in an inpatient program primarily for suicidal clients. For the past ten years, I have helped create an educational approach called: Contextual-Conceptual Therapy: Guiding the Suicidal Patient using Maps, Models, & Metaphors..
Testimonials:
"There has never been a therapy specifically for suicide, until today."
David Olive, Ph.D.
Lead Psychologist,
National Health Service of England
“ The importance of Matteson’s discovery for gaining a deeper insight into the lived experience of suicidality cannot be overstated.”
Daniel Deardorff
AUTHOR of THE OTHER WITHIN: THE GENIUS of DEFORMITY IN MYTH, CULTURE & PSYCHE
“I have been fortunate to have observed many masters of the craft in action, including Carl Rogers, Michael Balint, Carl Whitaker, Fritz Perls, Victor Frankl, and Albert Ellis. However, Fredric Matteson is unique in his background and approach.”
Tom Rusk, MD,
SENIOR PSYCHIATRIST
PENOBSCOT COMMUNITY HEALTH CARE
DIPLOMATE of the AMERICAN BOARD of PSYCHIATRY and NEUROLOGY
DISTINGUISHED LIFE FELLOW, AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION
AUTHOR of the BESTSELLING BOOKS: "THE POWER of ETHICAL PERSUASION",
"GET OUT of YOUR OWN WAY"; "I WANT TO CHANGE BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW"
FEATURED GUEST on THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW
Contact:
To contact Fredric Matteson for more information about the CCT Program and available services, he can be reached via
E-mail or via our Contact page.
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The Center for Contextual-Conceptual Education LLC
© Copyright 2010 Fredric Matteson
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Events:
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•THE HOLLYHOCK SUMMER GATHERING / An Invitational Leadership Conference
Cortes Island (British Columbia, Canada)
August 7-12, 2011
Recent Presentations:
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•SUICIDE IS NOT ABOUT KILLING YOURSELF / Going Deeper Into the Suicidal Experience
w/ The Suicidal Person
Bainbridge Island, Washington USA
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•The CONTEXTUAL-CONCEPTUAL THERAPY TRAINING RETREAT / WORKSHOP in Barcelona, Spain
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•National Health Service (NHS) Trust of England and The University of Essex Conference on Suicide
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•12th European Symposium on Suicide and Suicidal Behavior (ESSB12)
