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Loving Someone with a Mental Illness or History of Trauma: Skills, Hope, and Strength for Your Journey

A book titled loving someone with a mental illness or history of trauma
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Family members and friends of adults with a mental illness frequently navigate difficult journeys, often filled with fear, heartache, frustration, helplessness, exhaustion, and guilt…feelings that may be intermingled with immense pride and hope. Stigma can lead to suffering in silence, only magnifying the isolation and pain.


Loving Someone with a Mental Illness or History of Trauma provides actionable strategies for these families and friends who give so much but whose own needs and sacrifices are often unappreciated. This book is grounded in Michelle’s 30 years as a psychologist and both authors’ lived experiences in loving family members and friends managing mental illness. It provides research-based recommendations, practical skills, up-to-date resources, inspiration from families with lived experience, and interactive activities to facilitate personal reflection. 


Grounded in science, empowering, and hopeful yet realistic, this book is an invaluable resource for family members, friends, and mental health professionals.


Click to see the table of contents and excerpts from the book about empowering your loved one, communication, strengthening your relationship, and parenting.
Available wherever books are sold.

Readers Can Learn

  • Tools to cope with their difficult emotions
  • Strategies to empower loved ones, including how to navigate the mental health system
  • Communication and limit-setting skills
  • Approaches to support loved ones who have experienced trauma or have PTSD
  • Ways to manage common challenges, such as alcohol or drug misuse and when a loved one declines professional help
  • Strategies to support children whose parents are struggling
  • Skills to build personal resilience and strengthen relationships

Praise

Mental illness is a family thing! All too often we fail to recognize the impact it has on family. Not anymore! In this groundbreaking, thoughtful, and compassionate book, the authors do a masterful job in detailing the impact mental illness has on the family and offering concrete steps family members can immediately implement.


Anthony Chambers, Ph.D., ABPP, The Family Institute at Northwestern University

Eminently practical, deeply empathic, and filled with vivid examples, this book emphasizes self-compassion, clear steps, and evidence-based approaches to caring for a loved one experiencing mental disorder or trauma. A "go-to" for core information on overcoming stigma, finding providers, achieving balance, and walking that fine line between involvement vs. overinvolvement. Five stars!


Stephen P. Hinshaw, Ph.D., University of California Berkeley; Author, Another Kind of Madness: A Journey through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness

This is a remarkable volume. The words jump off the page and generate thoughts and ideas and emotions that are informative and healing. It is clear, concise and actionable. As a family member and clinician, I resonate with the factual material presented and with the questions it asks us to ask ourselves.


Lisa B. Dixon, MD, MPH, Columbia University and New York-Presbyterian Hospital

A remarkable book that I wish I'd been able to read when our son was first diagnosed. Intensely readable, it arms family members and friends with essential practical information. Best of all, it gives families like mine hope and strength by offering ways to cope on our lifelong and difficult journey.     


Mindy Greiling, Former NAMI National and NAMI Minnesota Board Member; Author, Fix What You Can: Schizophrenia and A Lawmaker's Fight for Her Son

All kinds of sports have a playbook—it’s time for families to be offered a playbook for mental health, especially when loving someone struggling with mental illness/trauma. The strategies in this book are uncomplicated and supportive, and highlighted with examples designed for families to know that they are not alone in their journey. 


Janette Concepcion, Ph.D., Private Practice

An inspirational, interactive book that provides timely, professional, and practical guidance. It is filled with “step by step” techniques and “I can use this today” information and skills. Highly recommend.


A.L. “Dutch” Doerman, Psy.D. ABPP, Oklahoma City VA and Colonel in the United States Air Force (Retired)

Reading this book feels like a very caring friend is talking to us--one who understands our struggles and has the know-how to guide us through our challenges. Grounded in science, but very readable and jam-packed with practical advice and skills that can provide comfort and strength. The examples are so relatable it's as if the authors interviewed you as they wrote this book.  


Hamid Mirsalimi, Ph.D. ABPP, Emory University School of Medicine

Every person with a family member managing mental illness should read this book; it will change the way you love and live with them. This interactive book provides digestible chunks of education and important insights that are desperately needed by families…as well as much-needed skills, hope, strength, and compassion.


Frederic Sautter, Ph.D., Tulane University School of Medicine

Drawing from their extensive clinical and lived experiences, the Shermans have written an insightful and accessible guide. It’s loaded with suggestions for managing stress, communicating with your loved one. empowering them in accessing the mental health system, and taking care of oneself. An important sourcebook for family members.


David J. Miklowitz, Ph.D., UCLA School of Medicine; Author of The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know

Families who have a loved one with a mental illness or substance use disorder need education, support and other people. Upbeat and positive in tone, it provides education and encouragement—and points families in the right direction to get answers to hard questions.


Marilyn Dornfeld, M.Ed., former Director of Family Programs for NAMI-MN

It can be a lonely journey when a loved one is experiencing a mental illness. It’s difficult to know what to do, where to look, how to handle the situation. This book connects you to ideas, practical strategies, and resources so that you need not walk it alone. It provides help and hope and a powerful reminder that caregivers need to take care of themselves.


Sue Abderholden, MPH, NAMI Minnesota

In my work as a therapist, I have seen so many people who blame themselves for a loved one's mental illness, or try to take personal responsibility for their loved one's behavior, leading to heartache, exhaustion, and more difficulty for the family. This book fills a critical need; it is a resource that I will recommend that individuals and families can access to help them care for their loved one and themselves.


J. Irene Harris, Ph.D., VA Maine Healthcare System and University of Maine Department of Psychology

Dr. Sherman has been a leader in the research and practice of supporting families affected by serious mental illness and trauma for decades. Her expertise in evidence-based principles for navigating difficult relationships and fostering personal wellbeing shows through in this book, alongside her deep understanding and empathy for the unique and varied challenges of being a family supporter. 


Charlie A. Davidson Ph.D., Emory University; Akin Mental Health; ABCT Psychosis and Schizophrenia Spectrum Special Interest Group Lead

This is the essential guide for family members of those with mental illness or trauma...reading it is like sitting in the warm and comforting office of Dr. Michelle Sherman, one of the nation’s most trailblazing researchers and therapists in the area of family members of those with mental illness.


Suzannah K. Creech, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin

Compassionate, informative, and thorough, this is an invaluable resource for those who love someone with a mental illness. The Shermans have recognized the need to “see” those who often feel invisible and to offer them guidance toward a greater understanding of their own experiences. A fantastic resource all-around!


Kate Esterline, Ph.D., Minneapolis, MN

This book teems with helpful writing exercises and resources for caregivers and assures family members they can remain hopeful and need not feel alone in the challenges they face. The authors are candid about the anger and resentment loving family caregivers commonly experience. Through scenarios, readable text, and helpful illustrations, the authors address stigma, attitudes, and boundary setting and its associated guilt and fear.


Jeffrey Zuckerman, MA MSW, Author of Unglued: A Bipolar Love Story and NAMI-MN Volunteer of the Year, 2022

At last, a care guide for the caregiver! Chock full of practical tips and vital information, it fills a huge void in the available resources. Written in a loving, nonjudgmental manner, I felt like I was talking with a friend. A must-read!     


LuAnn Kibira, APRN, University of Minnesota Physicians (retired)

A must-read for anyone who has a family member managing a mental illness. The Shermans offer a powerful guide for family members including coping skills, limit setting, navigating the healthcare system, and parenting with a partner who has a mental illness. Highly recommend without reservation.


Alan Groveman, Ph.D., ABPP, President of the American Academy of Couple and Family Psychology

The authors do not sugar coat nor shy away from the difficulty of living and loving someone with a mental illness or trauma history. This book gives the reader permission to stop living in silence and paves a way forward despite the stress, ambiguity, and potential chaos that can accompany mental illness and trauma. This interactive workbook is the first of its kind in its comprehensive support and guidance for loved ones of someone with a mental illness or trauma history.


Kristin Verhoeven, PMHNP-BC, University of Minnesota, And Loved One of People with Mental Illness

A strengths-based, practical guide of straightforward exercises that comes from a place of expertise and heart. You can tell they really “get it” as you are supported in gaining clarity of your experiences while being provided with evidenced-based coping skills to help you navigate challenges. 


Melanie Masin-Moyer, DSW, LCSW, Thomas Jefferson University Health

As a mental health advocate and caregiver, I find this book to be one of my most valuable resources. I cannot recommend it enough to anyone supporting a loved one with mental illness. It will deepen your knowledge and feed your soul.


Kristen Stone MDiv, Mental Health Advocate and Author of Thrive With Schizophrenia

Dr. Sherman and her mother have written an exemplary roadmap for anyone with a family member experiencing mental illness, debilitating trauma, or addiction. I highly recommend this excellent, practical, and approachable book.


Macaran (Mac) Baird, MD MS, Former Chairman and Emeritus Professor of Family Medicine & Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School

The Shermans have tackled a difficult and often taboo subject and made it relatable and compassionate. This is the acknowledgement and support so many families need to begin the conversation about how to cope and find strength in the midst of uncertainty


Pastor Kristin Kurzejeski, Bethel Lutheran Church, Hudson, WI

A much-needed and excellent resource for family members of individuals with severe and persistent mental illness. It does a wonderful job of applying science and evidence-based interventions in easy-to-understand and manageable bits. 


Krithika Malhotra, Ph.D., Northwestern University

Living with someone with a mental illness can be exhausting, confusing, and painful, as well as damaging to one’s own mental health. While we cannot control the actions or reactions of our friends and family members with mental illness, we can manage our own responses to them. The book provided concrete cognitive and behavioral strategies for accepting, offering compassion, connecting, and communicating with loved ones with a mental illness.


Jill R. Bowers, Ph.D., Eastern Illinois University

I wish this book was available 20 years ago when I started in ministry, but now I have a treasure to share with those who are walking with loved ones with a mental illness or a history of trauma.


Pastor Ladd Sonnenberg, Bethel Lutheran Church, Hudson, WI

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