A Handbook for Family, Friends, and Caregivers
This book is an introductory course on serious mental illnesses and how to deal with them.
It explains the various forms of mental illness and their treatment, and it provides guidance on nearly every topic of interest to the families and friends of those with mental health issues.
Some of the topics and advice:
--Determining realistic goals and expectations for your mentally ill relative.
--Deciding how involved you should be.
--Setting limits with the ill person.
--Handling hallucinations and responding to delusions.
--Handling your ill relative's anger.
--Minimizing relapses.
--Dealing with bizarre behavior.
--Balancing time between ill and well family members.
--Deciding if a relative should stay at home.
When Someone You Love Has A Mental Illness is an excellent and invaluable guide to the resources and help available to those with an ill relative. Highly recommended.
--"Our society lacks a clear and healthy approach to people with mental illness. The tragedy in this is that although we have the know-how to create environments in which people with mental illness thrive to the fullest extent possible given the nature of their illness, our culture has never chosen to do so on a consistent long-term basis."
--"After love, structure is perhaps the most important element of any successful relationship with, or treatment program for, people with mental illness. Without it, they are left adrift, in a tumultuous sea of confusion."
--"Violence is one of the most feared yet least likely behaviors of people with mental illness. While many people with mental illness act in unusual and unpredictable ways, they do not often strike out at someone."
--"Those people who have both a mental illness and a serious problem with drugs or alcohol have far more than twice the difficulties of people who have either one alone. The best-known treatment approach for each problem acts in opposition to the best-known approach for the other."
--"It is not fair that so many good, loving people have their lives devastated by severe illnesses. This injustice can shake even the most firmly held belief about religion, morality, and the meaning of life… People can spend years trying to understand why such a terrible thing happened to their family…"
