Product InfoSerious mental illness is the term which groups together schizophrenia and manic depression - conditions that can at times cause sufferers to lose touch with reality. Many people know very little about them, and are scared by sensational headlines that occasionally hit the media. So if you, or someone close to you, has a serious mental illness you need reliable, sensitive information and sources of help.

This book explains crucial background information - to help you understand what happens, and make it easier to talk to doctors and other healthcare professionals. It explores the emotional impact that a breakdown can have on the family - on parents, partners and children - and gives valuable pointers on practical issues - getting the best from the system, coping in a crisis, legal matters, and meeting other practical needs.

Gwen Howe has written for professionals on schizophrenia, and now draws on her experience to offer a realistic and supportive view, to help everyone who wants a better understanding of serious mental illness.

Contents

Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction

Part I Coping with breakdown

• About serious mental illness
• Some symptoms and experiences of serious mental illness
• About medical treatment
• What else helps?
• Coming to terms with what has happened

Part II The impact on the family

• Reactions and important relationships
• Moving forward together
• Coping with the outside world

Part III Practical issues

• Typical mental health resources
• The law - its use and abuse
• Finding your way round the system
• Meeting other practical needs

Part IV A mutually supportive network

• Recognizing and dealing with uncomfortable emotions
• Surviving a serious mental illness

Further reading
Useful addresses
Index 

Extra Info

Individuals with conditions such as manic depression or schizophrenia can lose touch with reality at the time of breakdown. Most of us are aware of this and associate such illnesses with disturbing media headlines and with violence. However, this is a tragically distorted picture as the vast majority of sufferers —around half a million of them in the UK — are not violent; they are law-abiding, often sensitive, people trying to get on with their lives despite the problems and social stigma associated with their diagnosis.

This book seeks to explain what serious mental illness is all about and how its victims are frequently talented and particularly creative individuals. Indeed, the world has been enriched by the heritage of paintings, poems and music left by artists who had to cope with manic depression or schizophrenia. Sadly, though, while sufferers can, and do, live normal lives, far too many are needlessly damaged by delays in diagnosis and treatment because the system generally responds to full blown crisis situations rather than to early signs of a developing illness or a threatened relapse.

Because of the stigma and ignorance associated with these types of illness, many very able and fit sufferers feel the need to hide their illness. At least one of your friends, neighbours or colleagues at work probably has a manic depressive illness or schizophrenia unbeknown to you. The subject is surrounded by secrecy and yet these conditions are so common that around two in every one hundred of the population will have such a diagnosis during their lifetime.

I write about this subject because I have long been convinced that we can stop most of the damage and waste of lives associated with serious mental illness just by taking a preventive approach instead of waiting for crisis after crisis to erupt. Unfortunately, there has been no sign of this happening. The care and treatment of individuals with a serious mental illness have taken second place to political expediency and misplaced ideology for the past three decades. It is therefore a joy to report that while I have been writing this book, there has been a determined move by sufferers themselves to push ahead with self-management programmes, which are all about preventing breakdowns and keeping well. At last there now seems to be some hope for the future.

Gwen Howe
June 1996

About the author
Gwen Howe is a retired mental health professional with three previous books on serious mental illness to her credit. She has been an active member of The National Schizophrenia Fellowship for the past fifteen years, is currently a member of Depression Alliance's professional advisory panel and Co-ordinator of a local pressure group of sufferers and carers.