Psychiatrist and researcher who has led the evidence-based critique of clinical suicide risk assessment — arguing that prediction-based models fail patients and must be replaced.
Dr. Matthew Large is a Conjoint Professor at the University of New South Wales and Clinical Director of Mental Health in the Eastern Suburbs Mental Health Service in Sydney, Australia. He is one of the world's most prominent critics of traditional approaches to suicide risk assessment, arguing on the basis of systematic research that the tools clinicians use to categorize patients as high or low risk have little predictive validity and may actively harm patients by substituting false certainty for genuine clinical engagement.
His meta-analytic and epidemiological work has demonstrated that even the best available risk assessment instruments perform poorly at identifying individuals who will make future suicide attempts, and that their widespread use reflects professional anxiety rather than scientific evidence. Dr. Large advocates for approaches that prioritize therapeutic alliance, needs-based care, and honest uncertainty rather than risk stratification. His scholarship has provoked important debates about clinical practice, professional liability, and the ethics of suicide prevention.
In this encore presentation, Dan and Dr. Matthew Large, a Conjoint Professor in the School of Psychiatry at UNSW Sydney, discuss the progresses and changes in the field of mental health.Dan and Dr. La…
In this conversation, Dan chats with Dr. Matthew Large about his experiences in the field of mental health, his research on suicide prediction, and how Suicide Risk Assessment can often times be…
