Is there a variant of the word of honor with regard to the risk presented by the patient?

We are psychologists, not hospital doctors. We are in a double bond, which means in an agreement, a pact from which we cannot leave. For the patient, this means "you can choose what you want, it's your life". We don't put ourselves in the position of people who want to save them, which is the duty of the hospital and the family, not ours.

Our first objective as therapists is not to repeat the attempts at solution made elsewhere, in particular by the family, because this increases the risk.

The word of honor  takes us away from the decision  and sticks to the relationship. What is important is our availability on the telephone, for example, which strongly commits us. We can be called by patients who tell us that they are on the 7th floor of a skyscraper or that they are ready to take a lot of cocktail drugs.

We must respond and take the same position: listen, repeat that the patient can choose.......

In my 30 years of working in this field, I have recorded only one suicide. That of a 75-year-old woman, alone, in a conviction of compromise, sick. She was in a state of advanced dementia. Brought by her daughter, she nevertheless lived alone since the death of her husband, which she had not managed to overcome. His condition prevented the prescription from being effective.