For counselors and counseling students

Practice the hardest conversation in counseling before it's real.

Talk out loud with realistic patients who may be thinking about suicide. Ask the direct questions, notice the quiet warning signs, and get a clear debrief on your skills afterward, with no one at risk.

Start practicing See how a session works

What you'll build

Confidence you can carry into a real session

  • Ask about suicide, directly and calmly

    It's the question many new counselors hesitate over. Say it out loud as many times as you need until it feels natural.

  • Hear what isn't said outright

    Patients drop subtle hints early on, the way real clients do. Practice noticing them and following up before the moment passes.

  • Make mistakes where it's safe

    No one is at risk. Try an approach, see how it lands, and try something different next time.

  • Know exactly what to work on

    Every session ends with a debrief on your counseling skills, so you can see what went well and what to practice next.

  • Stay with someone over time

    Come back to the same patient for follow-up sessions and pick up where you left off, the way care continues in real practice.

  • Practice whenever you're ready

    No role-play partner to schedule and no actor to book. A session starts when you do.

How it works

One practice session, start to finish

  1. Choose who you'll meet

    Each patient has their own history, personality and way of talking, shaped by patterns from real counseling sessions.

  2. Talk it through, out loud

    It's a live video call. You speak naturally, and they answer in their own voice, the way a client would across the room.

  3. Pace the session

    A session map walks you from building rapport, through assessing risk, to closing with a plan, so you always know where you are.

  4. Review your debrief

    See which skills you used, read back an annotated transcript, and ask the feedback chat anything about how it went.

Support at every step

Help when you want it, feedback when you're done

During the call

  • A map of the session. Seven stages from rapport to closure, with a clock so you can pace yourself.
  • Ideas when you're stuck. Suggested questions and next steps, based on what the patient just said.
  • A live read on risk. Statements that signal risk are flagged as they come up, so nothing slips past.
  • The C-SSRS at hand. Work through the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale during the conversation.
  • Your own notes. Jot things down mid-session, just as you would in an appointment.

After the call

Your debrief looks at the skills that matter in a risk conversation, judged from what you actually said.

Core skills

  • Listening
  • Reflecting feelings
  • Paraphrasing
  • Use of questions
  • Pacing
  • Holding emotional space
  • Respect and validation
  • Genuineness
  • Avoiding advice-giving
  • Cultural awareness
  • Developmental awareness
  • Appropriate delivery
  • Ending the session well

Advanced techniques

  • Empathy
  • Immediacy
  • Interpretation
  • Identifying patterns
  • Confrontation
  • Self-disclosure
  • Humor

Plus an annotated transcript and a feedback chat for anything you want to ask.

Grounded in real counseling

Patients who sound like the people you'll actually sit with

The patients you meet are informed by years of real counseling sessions and lived experience, so the way they open up, hold back, or change over time feels familiar.

Counseling session recordings
7,000+
Patient journeys followed over time
550+
Where CRISIS is developed
University of Florida

Your next difficult conversation can be a practice one.

Choose a patient and start your first session in minutes.

Start practicing