When Someone You Love Has a Mental Illness

Course overview

When Someone You Love Has a Mental Illness is a practical, accessible guide for any professional who serves people with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder or severe bipolar disorder. The objective as well as subjective symptoms and experiences of people struggling with these illnesses is described. The treatments and course of the illnesses are reviewed. How to more effectively communicate with such people will be clarified. Guidelines are presented for coping with the multitude of problems that regularly confront caregivers and families. Of special note are forty-eight “Quick Reference Guides” about such topics as responding to delusions, hallucinations, and anger; deciding if a person should live at home or in a facility; minimizing relapses, managing stress; helping siblings and adult children; the effects of street drugs and impact on psychiatric medication, and how to help people who don’t understand that they have mental illness and substance use disorders. Vital information is offered about recovery for people with both psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. Short-term daily problems of interacting with such people are addressed as well as treatment and longer term care options. This book is also of great value for those who work with or interface with family members of people with major psychiatric disorders. It discusses the issues and feelings with which families regularly struggle and offers useful suggestions about how to best address these.