Self-Injury & Suicide: When & How Educators Should Intervene

Kim Johancen, M.A., LPC is a Colorado-based author, therapist, and speaker with specialties including sexual trauma, relational trauma and betrayal, suicide, and self-injury. She has worked extensively with kids, families, and adults throughout her 25 year career and works to help clients alleviate post trauma symptoms while also building resilience and strength. Kim is well versed in multiple evidence-based therapeutic modalities including Internal Family Systems, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.

She is a certified EMDR therapist and is nearing completion of a second certification in Brain Spotting Therapy. In addition to her clinical practice, she is also a clinical supervisor and consultant for a variety of professionals and multidisciplinary teams. She has served as Assistant Training Director at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado and has been an active board member for the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado and the Sexual Assault Services Organization in Durango. She is currently developing a comprehensive training program in Denver for graduate level students and counselors.

In regards to public speaking, she has presented her clinical work throughout her career. She received an invitation to present her team’s work on self-injury at Harvard and her work on suicide intervention efforts at Stony Brook University in New York. She is a contributing author to Matthew Selekman’s Young Adult and Adolescent Self-Harming Treatment Manual and is a co-author of Traumatized Students: School-Based Interventions for Reaching Under the Surface. She has published numerous articles with the American Counseling Association (including having her own column with ACA) and has published a coping card deck for children and middle schoolers to help build resilience.