How To Help Your Loved One Get Help

It's very hard to watch a loved one need help but not get it. What you do to help depends on why they refuse help and how much they accept that they have an illness. See this video on The Imposter Syndrome for one way this looks https://youtu.be/4iyDPHxPH78

Some examples of questions to ask yourself are
How much impairment does the illness cause?
How much insight do they have into their illness?
How accepting are they of their illness? You can have someone who doesn’t except they have an illness at all despite being very functionally impaired or you could have a person that accepts that they have an illness, but does not take their medication consistently because they feel like they don’t always need it. This person doesn’t appreciate for the need for consistent treatment, but at least they’ve gotten as far as accepting that need some kind of treatment.

Here are the takeaways from this video: for the person who won’t get treatment or return to it, focus on the pain points and encourage them to get help for the pain points.
For the person who has already been in treatment but is not following through, you focus on the positive endpoints of treatment. These would be the things that improve with treatment.

You also want to understand what things are like for them and what their objections are. At first, you want to listen compassionately and not challenge them on the objections. People need to feel heard when they're suffering and the solution to their suffering also causes suffering.
So then it’s about offering support and engaging in a partnership with them to see how together you can find a work around. That is, how you can find treatment that’s tolerable and gets to them to those positive endpoints.
For the person who doesn’t appreciate that they have a illness, you may need to use contingencies to get them to follow through with treatment.

Want to know more about mental health and self-improvement? On this channel I discuss topics such as bipolar disorder, major depression, anxiety disorders, attention deficit disorder (ADHD), relationships and personal development/self-improvement. I upload weekly. If you don’t want to miss a video, click here to subscribe. https://goo.gl/DFfT33

Disclaimer: All of the information on this channel is for educational purposes and not intended to be specific/personal medical advice from me to you. Watching the videos or getting answers to comments/question, does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. If you have your own doctor, perhaps these videos can help prepare you for your discussion with your doctor.

By: Dr. Tracey Marks
Title: How To Help Your Loved One Get Help
Sourced From: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmNymQEDPk4