That's what I do verbally. As I do that, I read the client's nonverbal responses, to be sure that I have full unconscious agreement. Anybody who tries to commit suicide is dissociated enough that she wouldn't consciously know whether she was going to commit suicide anyway or not.

After using NLP for three months the situation will be so different that the issue of suicide probably won't even come up again. I will bring it up myself, just to make sure, and because I've made an agreement.

Milton Erickson often used a contract like that. He would then point out that since she has been planning suicide anyway, she may as well go out in style. «How much money do you have in the bank?» «Oh, $5,000.» «Good. By Wednesday you will have consulted a hair specialist, and someone who is competent to teach you to dress appropriately.

You look gross! You will also consult someone who can teach you how to walk and talk and meet people, both in social settings and in interviews.» She can't object to spending money, because soon she will be dead, so it won't matter. He uses her planning to be dead as leverage to move her into new behaviors that he knows will make suicide unnecessary.

Man: What if you decided that suicide was an appropriate choice, because the person was very old, incapacitated, and in great pain, or something like that?

Then I would do essentially the same thing that I do when both members of a couple have decided to end a relationship. I help them really complete the ending of the relationship so that they can go on cleanly and congruently. When a person ends a relationship, typically he carries lots of «unfinished business» with him and leaves a lot of messes behind him. This is also true of suicide.

Let me give you a specific ritual that I have used to accomplish this. I ask the person to select a place in the outdoors that is very special to him, preferably a high place where he can look out over the world.