Patients at high risk are flooding today's short-stay psychiatric inpatient units, presenting with suicidality and other self-destructive behaviors. Many of these patients are unable to regulate their internal experience and their behavior. The Self-Regulation Program described in this article uses cognitive-behavioral techniques that appear to empower patients to control the intensity of feelings, to change irrational thinking patterns, and to develop constructive behavioral responses. As a result of participating in this program, there appeared to be improvement in patients' coping strategies. The patients reported both increased feelings of empowerment and decreased engagement in self-destructive behaviors.
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