when a loved one won’t seek mental health treatment: how to maintain your own well-being while helping others

Escape the ＂family trap,＂ help your loved one on the road to recovery, and take back your life.

If you have a family member who suffers from mental illness, but refuses to seek treatment, you may feel like you’re caught in a trap. If you try making life easier for your loved one, you wind up perpetuating dependency and entitlement. If you push for treatment, you are met with resistance or outright animosity. And when you reach out to professionals for help, you are told that nothing can be done unless your family member is ready to change. So, how can you escape the ＂family trap?＂

Written by clinicians and introducing the innovative family well-being approach (FWBA), this essential guide provides validation and doable strategies for anyone who feels trapped by a family member or loved one suffering from mental illness. Using the skills in this book, you’ll learn how your responses to your loved one can worsen and even perpetuate the very problems you are trying to resolve. You’ll also discover ways to promote healthy behavior in recovery avoiders, but only after the whole family is emotionally and strategically prepared to follow through successfully.

The family well-being approach outlined in this book is based on established principles of behavior change, family interaction research, and more than three decades of clinical experience. If you’re feeling caught in a trap with a loved one who won’t seek help--also known as a recovery avoider--this practical guide can help you find your way out, once and for all.

C. Alec Pollard, PhD, is founding director of the Center for OCD and Anxiety-Related Disorders (COARD), and Professor Emeritus of Family and Community Medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Pollard is a licensed psychologist who works with a range of obsessive-compulsive and anxiety-related disorders, with a special interest in patients ambivalent about or resistant to therapy. He serves as a reviewer for a number of professional journals and conference program committees, and has authored and coauthored more than eighty-five publications, including two books: The Agoraphobia Workbook and Dying of Embarrassment. He is leader of the Family Consultation Team at Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute and co-developer of the family well-being approach.

Melanie VanDyke, PhD, is a licensed psychologist at the Center for OCD & Anxiety-Related Disorders at Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute and associate professor of psychology at the University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St. Louis. She was principal investigator of the family well-being consultation research project conducted at Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute and is co-developer of the family well-being approach.

Gary Mitchell, LCSW, is a senior staff clinician at the Center for OCD & Anxiety-Related Disorders at Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute. He is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in the treatment of children and adults with OCD, anxiety disorders, and related problems. He is an original member of the Family Consultation Team at Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute and co-developer of the family well-being approach.

Heidi J. Pollard, MSN, is currently in private practice where she consults with families dealing with a treatment-reluctant loved one. She was an original member of the Family Consultation Team at Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute and co-developer of the family well-being approach.