Ashley Lenser

ENG 1201

Professor Barnes

19 March 2021

Source #1: “Helping a Loved One Cope with Mental Illness”- This article goes into detail about

how you can help someone in your family who has a mental illness. How to approach what is

going on and how to handle certain situations. A good point that is brought up within the article is

that you need to show patience towards the person who suffers from the mental illness, and not

be judgemental. To listen, and not belittle them and make them think that their feelings don’t

matter. People who live with someone who has a mental illness and that are around them a lot

should educate themselves so they are not totally unaware of what to do. This article was

written to educate families on what to do, how to react, and to not be so scared of mental

illnesses.

Source #2: “ Relationships of Family Emotional Support and Negative Family Interactions with

the Quality of Life among Chinese People with Mental Illness and the Mediating Effect of

Internalized Stigma” From Sinclair Database- This article goes into detail about the effects of

negative family interactions versus the emotional support you can recieve from family. This

article is written about Chinese families, but I believe it is still relevant. For chinese people and

families, interventions aimed at helping their quality of life should be enhancing their family

emotional support, and not so much of the negative aspects that can happen in a family. It was

written to explain how being arond a negative family will not help the person with the mental

illness in any way. Surrounding themselves with a good support system is one way that will

really enhance their mental health.

Source #3: “Advice to Families Coping with Psychiatric Problems”- I believe this article is real

and authentic, and it can actually be helpful for someone who has a mentally ill family member. It

was written for people to take advice from and learn how to cope. It says for no on in the family
to blame themselves, which I think is a very good point because that kind of blame can not be

on one person shoulders. It is just not logical and because it most likely is no one in the families

fault.

Summary-

The question that I am exploring is how should families manage the stress of of dealing

with a mentally ill family member? There are many different ways that families who have

someone suffering from a mental illness can help that person. One of the main ways a family

member can do that is educating themselves on the how and why aspects of a mental illness.

There are so many different ways a family member can help, but educating themselves is one

of the most important.

Like most things around the world, there is a background history. Mental illness has a

background of its own. In years past, mental illness was something that was frowned apon. Not

many people would openly come out and say they suffer from a mental illness because it made

them look weak and they would ultimately get judged for it. More recently have people been able

to come out and share their stories and instead of being made fun of, they have so many people

who are there to support them.

Most of the articles I read had a lot of similarities of how family members can help

someone with a mental illness. Like I stated in the paragraph before, educating yourself is very

important and that came up a lot in most of the articles I read. By just reading how mental

illnesses can become or by sitting by someones side throughout the whole thing are ways to

educate yourself. You see things first hand and that can educate you too, but knowing

appropriate responses to things is what is important.

“Feeling irrationally guilty not only hurts the family, it also reduces its ability to see things

clearly and provide the optimal combination of supports and limits for the loved one” This quote
is from Allen Frances in his article “Advice to Families Coping With Psychiatric Problems”. This

quote stood out to me because people in the family can not blame themselves. This is

something said in many articles too. If you have no reason to feel guilty, then you should not feel

guilty because that is a lot on one person. Feeling guilty will only make things worse in the long

run, because everyone in the family will feel stuck.

All of my sources that I have gathered are written from Doctors who are certified and/or

they used references from other sources that were credible as well. I think there are also

misconceptions about my topic too because people who have never suffered from a mental

illness do not always understand the lengths of it. They are the type of people who are

uneducated and will say things like “well just don’t feel sad”. It is a little bit more complex than

that and that is something a lot of people do not understand, because they have never been in

that position.

I am going to further my research and educate myself on this topic even more so I can

have a better understanding and know exactly what I am talking about. I know things about

mental illness involving someone close to you, but I believe I can better my understanding by

reading more articles and really applying myself to this topic so I can have a good final draft on

this paper. I honestly believe though that educating yourself on this topic if you have someone

mentally ill in your family is the absolute best thing you can do.
 Works Cited

Frances, Allen. “Advice to Families Coping With Psychiatric Problems.” Psychiatric

Times , 19 Oct. 2019,

www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/advice-families-coping-psychiatric-problems.

Chang, Ching-Wen, and Fang-pei Chen. “Relationships of Family Emotional Support and

Negative Family Interactions with the Quality of Life among Chinese People with Mental

Illness and the Mediating Effect of Internalized Stigma.” Psychiatric Quarterly , vol. 92, no.

1, 2020, pp. 375–387., doi:10.1007/s11126-020-09811-9. FROM SINCLAIR DATA BASE

Simms, K. Helping a Loved One Cope with a Mental Illness , 2021,

www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/helping-a-loved-one-cope-with-a-mental-illness#:~:te

xt=Try%20to%20show%20patience%20and,be%20more%20comfortable%20for%20them.