Chronic suicidal thoughts, experienced by the client/patient as feeling suicidal for most of their life, is a key component of borderline personality disorder and other chronic treatment resistant depression syndromes. This webinar will explore the origin of this, developing a hypothesis that chronic suicidality starts with attachment difficulties, usually in the first year of life, which is then located within the implicit memory system as a traumatic memory constellation. This memory system is activated when subsequent crucial adult relationships are lost, or threatened. As a consequence, the current suicidal experience is located within the current relationships, with no clue or understanding that this is a repetition of a much earlier painful experience.

The second part of the talk will explain how to use this hypothesis in psychodynamic psychotherapy, particularly within the Conversational Model, to eliminate chronic suicidal thoughts and maladaptive behaviour, commonly used to manage this unbearably painful experience. This hypothesis will also explain why psycho-education, short term therapy or medication do not work for the client with chronic suicidal thoughts.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Review the development of memory systems.
• Explain the relationship between memory systems and attachment.
• Describe the implications of traumatic memory systems for psychotherapy.
• Identify what is required in psychotherapy to facilitate change in traumatic memory systems.
• Discuss how the principles of the Conversational Model are designed to address and modify traumatic memory systems.

Venue: Online Webinar.  Includes access to video recording for 30 days.

Date: Saturday, 20th of September, 2025

Time: 1100hrs to 1300hrs (Sydney/Melbourne Time)

Cost: ANZAP Members $90, Non-Members - $120, ANZAP Students - Free, Westmead Students - $40, Other Students - $60.

CPD Certificate: 2 hours. CPD certificates are issued to attendees attend the live webinar with at least 80% attendance.

About Dr Nick Bendit: Dr Nick Bendit has been working at the Centre for Psychotherapy for the past 20 years, a publicly funded outpatient psychotherapy unit, treating patients with borderline personality disorder (using both conversational model, an adapted psychodynamic psychotherapy, and dialectical behavior therapy, an adapted cognitive behavioural psychotherapy) and patients with dissociative identity disorder (using conversational model). He is the current Director of Training of the Australia and New Zealand Association of Psychotherapy (ANZAP). He has published articles on mechanisms of change in psychotherapy, reviewing the effectiveness of DBT in borderline personality disorder, and mechanisms of chronic suicidal thoughts in patients with borderline personality disorder. He has been a co-author on the most recent Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines on deliberate self harm in borderline personality disorder (RANZCP, 2016). He is the co-author of the second-largest randomised clinical trial of the effectiveness of psychotherapy in BPD, comparing DBT and the Conversational Model (Walton et al, 2020).

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