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

A compassionate, interactive guide filled with practical skills and essential information for adults who love someone with a mental illness or history of trauma.

Family members and friends of adults with a mental illness often navigate difficult journeys, filled with fear, heartache, frustration, helplessness, exhaustion, and guilt--feelings that may be intermingled with immense pride and hope. Suffering in silence can magnify confusion, isolation, and pain.

Loving Someone with a Mental Illness or History of Trauma provides actionable strategies for these family members and friends who give so much but whose needs and sacrifices are often unappreciated. Written by clinical psychologist Dr. Michelle Sherman and her mother, DeAnne Sherman, an advocate and educator, the book provides research-based recommendations, practical skills, up-to-date resources, inspiration from families with lived experience, and interactive activities to encourage personal reflection.

This accessible guide teaches readers:
- Tools to cope with difficult emotions
- Strategies to empower loved ones, including how to navigate the mental health system
- Communication and limit-setting skills
- Approaches to supporting 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
- Skills to build personal resilience and strengthen relationships

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

Michelle D. Sherman, PhD, ABPP, (ST. PAUL, MN)is a board-certified, licensed clinical psychologist who is a nationally recognized leader in the family experience of mental illness and trauma. She is the editor-in-chief of Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice and worked for many years in the Veterans Affairs system. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and was named their Family Psychologist of the Year in 2022. DeAnne Sherman (ST. PAUL, MN), Michelle’s mother, is a mental health advocate, author, and educator. The Shermans draw from not only their professional roles, but also from their lived experiences as family members and friends of those with a mental illness. Sherman and Sherman are coauthors of I’m Not Alone: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who Has a Mental Illness and Finding My Way: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who Has Experienced Trauma.