When a Loved One Won’t Seek Mental Health Treatment

The Community Health Resource Center (HRC) at Griffin Hospital is helping bring awareness to behavioral health issues this month by highlighting When a Loved One Won’t Seek Mental Health Treatment: How to Promote Recovery and Reclaim Your Family’s Well-Being as its July Book of the Month.

Written by C. Alec Pollard, PhD, Melanie VanDyke, PhD, and Gary Mitchell, LCSW, this book aims to help individuals escape the “family trap,” support loved ones on the road to recovery, and to take back their own life. Featuring the innovative family well-being approach, 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, readers learn how their responses to their loved one can worsen and even perpetuate the very problems they are trying to resolve. Readers will 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. Individuals feeling caught in a trap with a loved one who won’t seek help—also known as a recovery avoider—can benefit from this practical guide by finding their way out, once and for all.