Coping planning is an approach to
supporting people who are
distressed.
[Stallman, H. M. & Wilson, C. J. (2018). Can the mental health of Australians be improved by dual strategy for promotion and prevention? ''Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry'', 52(6), 602. ] It is part of a
biopsychosocial approach to
mental health and wellbeing that comprises healthy environments,
responsive parenting,
belonging, healthy activities,
coping,
psychological resilience and treatment of illness.
[Stallman, H. M. (2018). Coping planning: a patient-centred and strengths-focused approach to suicide prevention training. ''Australasian Psychiatry'', 26(2), 141–144. ] Coping planning normalises distress as a universal human experience. It draws on a health-focused approach to coping, to improve
emotion regulation
Emotional self-regulation
or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as ...
and decrease the memory of unpleasant emotions. Coping planning interventions are effective when people are supported in the process of forming coping plans.
Approach
Coping planning aims to meet the needs of people who ask for help with distress, including suicidal ideation.
By addressing ''why'' someone asks for help, the focus stays on what the person needs rather than on what the helper wants to do. It provides an alternative to the widely used, but non-evidence-based risk-assessment approach to
suicide prevention
Suicide prevention is a collection of efforts to reduce the risk of suicide. Suicide is often preventable, and the efforts to prevent it may occur at the individual, relationship, community, and society level. Suicide is a serious public health ...
.
Needs assessment and support focuses on the individual needs of each person. They are rated as low (coping independently), moderate (may need additional low-intensity professional support), or high (needs immediate high-intensity professional support).
Applications
In addition to suicide prevention training for health professionals, coping planning has been used to train journalists, and to help a range of people cope better, including carers, university students, and with children to improve
emotional regulation