Advice on Helping Your Loved Ones, from the medical director of the country's largest state mental health system and the mental health editor of The Huffington Post More than fifty million people a year are diagnosed with some form of mental illness. It spares no sex, race, age, ethnicity, or income level. And left untreated, mental disorders can devastate our families and communities. Family members and friends are often the first to realize when someone has a problem, but it is hard to know how to help or where to turn. Our mental health “system” can feel like a bewildering and frustrating maze. How can you tell that someone has a mental illness? What are the first and best steps for you to take? Where do you go to find the right care? The Family Guide to Mental Health Care is the first comprehensive print resource for the millions of people who have loved ones suffering from some kind of mental illness. In this book, families can find the answers to their most urgent questions. What medications are helpful and are some as dangerous as I think? Is there a way to navigate privacy laws so I can discuss my adult daughter’s treatment with her doctor? Is my teenager experiencing typical adolescent distress or an illness? From understanding depression, bipolar illness and anxiety to eating and traumatic disorders, schizophrenia, and much more, readers will learn what to do and how to help. Real-life scenarios and authoritative information are written in a compassionate, reader-friendly way, including checklists to bring to a doctor’s appointment so you can ask the right questions. For readers who fear they will never see the light at the end of the tunnel, this book gives hope and a path forward. As one of the nation’s leading voices on quality care in mental health, Dr. Lloyd Sederer has played a singular role in advancing services for those with mental illness. Now, the wealth of his expertise and clear guidance is at your disposal. From the first signs of a problem to sorting through the variety of treatment options, you and your family will be able to walk into a doctor’s office know what to do and what to ask.

This indispensable book about love and mental health addresses the short-term, daily problems of living with a person with mental illness, as well as long-term planning and care. Of special note are the forty-three “Quick Reference Guides” about such topics as: responding to hallucinations, delusions, violence and anger; helping your loved one comply with treatment plans and medication; deciding if the person should live at home or in a facility; choosing a doctor and dealing with mental health professionals; handling the holidays and family activities; managing stress; helping siblings and adult children with their special concerns. “Ms. Woolis produced a handbook which is both practical and accessible, eminently useful for all of us who have a family member with a serious mental illness.” –E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., author of Surviving Schizophrenia “Rebecca Woolis presents easy-to-follow practical guidelines for coping with the multitude of problems that regularly confront families. In minutes the reader can find helpful suggestions for dealing with any problem that might arise.” –Christopher S. Amenson, Ph.D., Director, Pacific Clinics East

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF GQ's TOP 50 BOOKS OF LITERARY JOURNALISM IN THE 21st CENTURY • The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease. "Reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness." —Oprah Winfrey Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.

Family Guide to Mental Illness and the Law offers the nuts-and-bolts legal information and problem-solving steps families need. This accessible resource explains how common legal issues uniquely impact people with various forms of mental illness and what family members can do to help.

With the trend of deinstitutionalization, family members are finding themselves increasingly in the position of primary caregivers to mentally ill adults - a role for which they are often untrained and unprepared. This volume explores the experiences of these caregivers. The author: discusses the characteristics and conceptual models related to mental illness; surveys the experience of mental illness in the context of the family life cycle and developmental stages of the illness; appraises the burdens on the family including social stigma, refusal of treatment, stress and the relationship between the mentally ill and caregivers within the family; and reviews family responses including coping strategies and professional and

Uses photographs and first person accounts edited from interviews with family members to profile forty-four families in which at least one member has been diagnosed with a psychiatric illness.

Research shows that many American adults with serious mental illness live with or maintain contact with their families; but families are rarely given information about their relative's illness & their own needs for support are ignored. Harriet Lefley traces the history of family psychoeducation in the U.S.