Barbara Stanley, PhD received international recognition for the development of a deceptively simple and effective tool for suicide prevention. The Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention, which she co-developed with Gregory K. Brown, PhD, asks patients who are dealing with suicidal urges to write a safety plan that lists a specific set of coping strategies and resources to use during a suicidal crisis. It is a way to help people in the midst of overwhelming emotions and has since been adopted by hospitals and mental health clinics across the U.S. as a method for suicide prevention.

Dr. Stanley’s work helped shift the focus of suicide research toward practical, concrete and timely interventions. She knew that the time between making a decision to die by suicide and the act of suicide is critical. Dr. Stanley was a Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and the Director of Suicide Prevention Training at New York State Office of Mental Health. She was the author and co-author of over 200 scholarly articles and book chapters.