While it can be isolating, mental illness is not an isolated experience. It affects more than just the individual: it impacts friends, family, spouses, significant others, and co-workers. I recall working with a married man who developed Major Depressive Disorder around the time his wife had their second child. He became emotionally distant, socially isolated, lethargic, couldn’t focus, took time off work to the point of being fired, and lost interest in sex. His wife struggled bitterly. She felt completely overwhelmed with the care of two young children. Her husband, on whom she once depended, was no longer contributing. She felt like she had to care for him as well and try to keep the family financially afloat since she was the only one working. Despite the challenging circumstances, she tried to keep their intimacy intact, but he had no interest in sex, going out, connecting with their friends, and he struggled to track during conversations. As you can imagine, this put a strain on their relationship, which they eventually ended. Neither one of them wanted the divorce, but the wife hit her breaking point, and her husband couldn’t find the energy to fight for the relationship. This is a sad story that is reflective of how mental illness impacts a marriage, a career, parenting, and personal finances.
When working with clients, I try to keep in mind the relational impact of mental illness in all its facets. Mental illnesses, like depression, affect the individual in every sphere of their life, including the social/relational. The above example illustrates how lonely the man felt, and how inexpressible his psychological and physical experience was to his wife. There were no words that existed in his mind or in their relationship for him to utilize. He and she were left in a wretched state of ambiguity. And despite her best efforts, she could not intimately access the depths of his depression. She, too, had no words. She couldn’t prevent feeling shut-out, as if she had been barred from his heart. Her dream was to feel unimaginable connection and joy at the birth of their child, but what she got was facing single-parenting while married.
Needless to say, there is a ripple effect of depression. The man’s relationship with his child will forever be changed. Certainly, it is within his grasp to foster a loving and connected relationship with his child, but he will have to do so with additional barriers due to the divorce, physical distance, child support, navigating co-parenting, and potential co-step parenting.
From my perspective as a clinician, problems are compounded when family and friends don’t understand the nature of mental illness, however, this is not always obvious to my clients and their loved ones. When trying their best to understand their loved one’s struggle, some may conclude that they aren’t trying hard enough, that they don’t care, or that they are seeking attention. Without information, without a sufficient explanation, bad interpretations fill the void, which only lead to judgment and alienation. As a clinician, I step into that void with accurate and compassion-filled information. My aim is to coach clients who are struggling with mental illness as well as their family members and explain that they may be tempted to personalize or create a negative attribution for their loved one’s behavior. It is tempting, natural, and understandable why they would do this, and yet, it is often a mistake in judgment. I try to explain that if their loved one had cancer, they wouldn’t take it personally or judge. Certainly they might have big feelings of sadness or anger at God or the universe, but there would be no assignment of blame to the diagnosed individual. They wouldn’t think, “Why did she choose to have cancer? They must want attention.” That would be absurd, and the vast majority of people would never think this.
So why would a wife, husband, partner, child, friend, or family member personalize a loved one’s depression, anxiety disorder, or phobia? I encourage my clients and their social network to make a genuine effort at understanding mental health disorders. It is natural to want to know as much as possible about a disease when a loved one may be diagnosed with a medical disease. As a clinician, I encourage clients to take that same impulse and learn as much as possible about their loved one’s mental health diagnoses. Ignorance only creates barriers to relationships, and my hope is to remove any barriers to social connection in my client’s way, as well as within their social network. A client is only as healthy as their community. Therefore, I want to empower clients to empower their communities, to mobilize those around them to seek out information and more deeply understand the psychological realities they are dealing with. And to find that middle ground of embracing the mental illness of your loved one but resisting the urge to define them by it.
***
Thinking back to my client mentioned earlier, I wonder how things would have been different if both the husband and wife had more awareness about depression. I wonder how the two of them may have pulled together, rather than apart, if they had known earlier on that the husband was being affected by a mental health disorder. If they had only had the words and concepts to understand not only the husband’s experience of depression, but also the relational impact that depression brought to their marriage and family. The wife was just as much a sufferer of depression as was the husband. This new understanding could have been a catalyst for collaboration, support, mutual understanding, and shared problem-solving.
File under: The Art of Psychotherapy
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When working with clients, I try to keep in mind the relational impact of mental illness in all its facets. Mental illnesses, like depression, affect the individual in every sphere of their life, including the social/relational. The above example illustrates how lonely the man felt, and how inexpressible his psychological and physical experience was to his wife. There were no words that existed in his mind or in their relationship for him to utilize. He and she were left in a wretched state of ambiguity. And despite her best efforts, she could not intimately access the depths of his depression. She, too, had no words. She couldn’t prevent feeling shut-out, as if she had been barred from his heart. Her dream was to feel unimaginable connection and joy at the birth of their child, but what she got was facing single-parenting while married.
Needless to say, there is a ripple effect of depression. The man’s relationship with his child will forever be changed. Certainly, it is within his grasp to foster a loving and connected relationship with his child, but he will have to do so with additional barriers due to the divorce, physical distance, child support, navigating co-parenting, and potential co-step parenting.
From my perspective as a clinician, problems are compounded when family and friends don’t understand the nature of mental illness, however, this is not always obvious to my clients and their loved ones. When trying their best to understand their loved one’s struggle, some may conclude that they aren’t trying hard enough, that they don’t care, or that they are seeking attention. Without information, without a sufficient explanation, bad interpretations fill the void, which only lead to judgment and alienation. As a clinician, I step into that void with accurate and compassion-filled information. My aim is to coach clients who are struggling with mental illness as well as their family members and explain that they may be tempted to personalize or create a negative attribution for their loved one’s behavior. It is tempting, natural, and understandable why they would do this, and yet, it is often a mistake in judgment. I try to explain that if their loved one had cancer, they wouldn’t take it personally or judge. Certainly they might have big feelings of sadness or anger at God or the universe, but there would be no assignment of blame to the diagnosed individual. They wouldn’t think, “Why did she choose to have cancer? They must want attention.” That would be absurd, and the vast majority of people would never think this.
So why would a wife, husband, partner, child, friend, or family member personalize a loved one’s depression, anxiety disorder, or phobia? I encourage my clients and their social network to make a genuine effort at understanding mental health disorders. It is natural to want to know as much as possible about a disease when a loved one may be diagnosed with a medical disease. As a clinician, I encourage clients to take that same impulse and learn as much as possible about their loved one’s mental health diagnoses. Ignorance only creates barriers to relationships, and my hope is to remove any barriers to social connection in my client’s way, as well as within their social network. A client is only as healthy as their community. Therefore, I want to empower clients to empower their communities, to mobilize those around them to seek out information and more deeply understand the psychological realities they are dealing with. And to find that middle ground of embracing the mental illness of your loved one but resisting the urge to define them by it.
***
Thinking back to my client mentioned earlier, I wonder how things would have been different if both the husband and wife had more awareness about depression. I wonder how the two of them may have pulled together, rather than apart, if they had known earlier on that the husband was being affected by a mental health disorder. If they had only had the words and concepts to understand not only the husband’s experience of depression, but also the relational impact that depression brought to their marriage and family. The wife was just as much a sufferer of depression as was the husband. This new understanding could have been a catalyst for collaboration, support, mutual understanding, and shared problem-solving.
File under: The Art of Psychotherapy