Eileen,

Best practices guidelines state that suicidality should be assessed at every session with every client. This does not mean that all Ts do this (in my experience most do not). The T I saw this summer asked almost every session about it. I think you should be honest with your T. I have started these conversations with my T by saying, what would you do in a situation where someone was x,y,z? How do you handle those situations? That lets me feel out where they are at. I have always been pleasantly surprised by their responses, that just because I may have suicidal ideation, did not mean that they were going to throw me in the hospital. Instead it meant that they were going to talk about it with me further and help me to find ways to do what I needed to take care of myself so I didn't end up in the hospital. I hope you can be honest about this with your T. He can't help you if he doesn't know what is going on.