Oct 03, 2024  
2024-2025 Edgewood College Catalog 
    
2024-2025 Edgewood College Catalog

Thanatology, Suicidology and Postvention Graduate Certificate


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Geared for licensed professional counselors and others who work in the counseling industry (social workers, coaches) or as part of interprofessional healthcare teams, the certificate in suicidology and postvention (grief support after suicide) prepares students to expand their knowledge and skills base to include the specialized area of suicidology. This content is not typically covered in depth in degree programs preparing people for licensure as counselors or therapists. Going beyond the biomedical illness model of suicide in which suicide is considered a symptom of psychiatric illness, the certificate educates students about evidence-based theory, treatments, and intervention. This certificate does not offer certification. 

Learning Objectives:

  • Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society
  • Compare and contrast theoretical models of the cause of suicide
  • Examine current research and literature on suicide among adults (prevention, assessment, intervention, post-intervention, postvention, special populations, ethnic/cultural groups, and global context)
  • Evaluate evidence-based approaches to assessment, clinical intervention, treatment models, and safety planning for adults, children, and teens
  • Examine approaches to grief support after suicide

Program Requirements


All certificates are 12 credits, and all require THN600: Introduction to Thanatology or its equivalent (after consultation with the program director, this course might be waived). THN600 need be taken only once and can be applied to subsequent certificates, or students may choose a fourth course in its stead.

Flexibility is important. Students can petition with the program director to adjust the electives that are part of each certificate, in case they have a specific educational need within the program and certificate. For example, for Suicidology and Postvention, they may not work with children and teens. Instead, they may prefer to take both THN707: Suicide and Children, Teens, and Young Adults and THN708: Traumatology OR THN710: Complicated Grief, instead of THN707: Suicide in the Lives of Children and Teens.

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