It's true, some don't like to work with suicidal patients. But I also agree with your T about challenging the view that people like you not being wanted.

ThingWithFeathers, you can make a distinction by not 100% owning how others feel about you, as if every reaction has something to do with you.

In other words, based on my personal view, it is the less experienced and less capable therapists that dislike working with suicidal patients. It is nothing to do with the patient herself not being wanted or good or worthy.

But also some don't like to work with very depressed patients or very anxious ones or people who are very somatic, etc. Don't take it personally. It's about them and their preference or abilities or their own mentality.

One therapist (not mine, but a friend of a physician we know) once confided that she disliked dealing with severely suicidal patients. She said because the situation makes her powerless sometimes in severe cases and she feels useless. Like she really wants to help but feels like she's not doing enough or that she's the one who screwed up if the client is feeling suicidal again.

She said but she tries not to think about those things cause they're more about her and what she wants and not the client, and so she tries to focus on the person and do her best in every instant. She said the situation had been worse when she had just started out but now she's getting better and better able to not let her personal emotional reaction interfere with well-being of her patients.

I hope me sharing this with you gives you a window into the mind of at least one therapist, seeing that a reluctance or dislike to work with suicide is not necessarily indicative of the person coming for help not being wanted or valued or liked.