The Aeschi Conferences were an international forum for dedicated clinicians and researchers with a focus on person-centered approaches to suicidal patients. The three-day conferences took place in the small alpine village of Aeschi, Switzerland, and later continued in Vail, Colorado, and ended in 2019. They provided a unique sharing and exchange of clinical experience, knowledge, and new therapeutic concepts to participants. The conferences were particularly famous for the plenary discussions of video-recorded patients' narratives of their suicide attempts.

The faculty members of the Aeschi Working Group comprised John T. Maltsberger, David A. Jobes, Antoon Leenaars, Israel Orbach, Richard Young, Ladislav Valach and Konrad Michel. Presentations and workshops included a wide range of topics, from psychoanalysis to CBT, DBT, MBCT, CAMS, Action Theory, Attachment Theory, Mentalization, neurobiology and genetics.

The conferences were extremely stimulating and over the years created a new understanding of suicide and the suicidal person. They resulted in a number of publications, such as "Discovering the Truth in Attempted Suicide"[1] with Guidelines for Clinicians, and the multi-author book "Building a Therapeutic Alliance with the Suicidal Patient", edited by Michel and Jobes[2].

Here is what was later called the Aeschi "Philosophy". "The Aeschi working group agreed that current mental health practice often does not take into account the subjective experience of patients attempting suicide, and that contemporary clinical assessments of suicidal behavior are more clinician-centered than patient-centered. The group concluded that clinicians should strive for a shared understanding of the patient's suicidally; and that interviewers should be more aware of the suicidal patient's inner experience of mental pain and loss of self-respect. Collaborative and narrative approaches to the suicidal patient are more promising enhancing the clinician's ability to empathize and help the patient begin to reestablish a sense of mastery[1]."

All good things have their time and have to come to an end. Looking back, I cannot avoid to see that most of the enthusiasm and insight created by the Aeschi Conferences has in the meantime been lost. It is my impression that only few psychotherapy-minded clinicians are using a truly person-centered approach to their suicidal patients.

Chapter 9 of "The Suicidal Person - A New Look at a Human Phenomenon"[3] by Konrad Michel provides an overview of the Aeschi Conferences.

1. Michel, K., et al., Discovering the truth in attempted suicide. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 2002. 56(3): p. 424-37.

2. Michel, K. and D.A. Jobes, Building a Therapeutic Alliance With the Suicidal Patient. 2011, Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association APA Books.

3. Michel, K., The Suicidal Person. A New Look at a Human Phenomenon. 2023, New York: Columbia University Press.

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