In the United States, one in five adults live with a mental illness. The amount of people struggling with concerns like depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders has led to the development of a diverse range of treatment programs. These programs aim to tackle these conditions with behavioral therapies, holistic therapies, and medications.
Despite the variety of treatments available, however, mental health recovery remains a challenge. Part of it comes down to the nature of the diseases and the structural changes they make to the brain, but there is also a social support aspect to relapse rates.
Family support is particularly important during recovery. Take a closer look at how this support can make a significant difference in the mental health recovery process — and why family therapy sessions can be so effective when helping yourself or a loved one.
Understanding Mental Health Recovery
The mental health recovery process isn’t linear, and it isn’t one-size-fits-all. The process can look different for everyone, depending on their goals. For some, being symptom-free might be what they’re striving for, while others may be content with accepting that they have symptoms and learning to manage them.
Keep in mind that although they often overlap, clinical and personal recovery can be two different goals as well. Clinical recovery can mean seeing a reduction in symptoms or not having any at all. Your care team will offer support throughout this process to help you achieve clinical recovery.
Personal recovery, however, can mean whatever you want it to mean. Just taking a few steps toward where you would like to be in terms of mental health can be recovery. If you struggle with positive thinking and you’re able to reframe a negative thought in a more positive light, that can also spell out recovery.
The journey of mental health recovery might begin as something that you’re working through along with your therapist and care team, but it can quickly require involving loved ones. That’s because mental health, be it involving post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, or substance use disorder, can impact everyone around you.
The Role of Family Support in Mental Health Recovery
Everyone struggling with mental health needs a support network. This network is generally made up of close friends, family members, support groups, and therapists. Friends and family members can have the greatest impact because they are the people closest to you, both physically and emotionally.
Types of Family Support
Family support can be categorized into three main groups: practical, emotional, and informational.
Practical Family Support
Practical family support can involve helping with everyday tasks like cleaning and cooking, along with scheduling appointments and even organizing therapy sessions. Practical support can be important because it helps to reduce stress and can ensure that the person struggling with mental health receives the exact care they need.
Emotional Family Support
On the other hand, emotional family support involves offering comfort and understanding. It means being empathetic to what you are going through and providing a safe space for speaking honestly. Everything from offering a shoulder to cry on to validating your feelings fits into this category of support.
Informational Family Support
Informational family support refers to providing education on mental health concerns and the various treatments. This support can help you better understand your condition and lead you to make better treatment decisions.
Signs of Effective Familial Support
Familial support must involve open communication among all participants. Having honest conversations about mental health is essential to the recovery process.
Along with open communication comes the setting of boundaries, however. Healthy boundaries ensure that everyone prioritizes their own well-being while still maintaining a supportive relationship. These boundaries can help prevent the development of codependent relationships.
Effective and positive family support also involves listening without judging. This should be something that everyone involved focuses on to foster an environment of acceptance and belonging.
Celebrating success together is another important aspect of familial support. All successes, no matter how small they may seem, should be acknowledged.
Benefits of Family Support in Mental Health Recovery
When loved ones are involved, recovery can feel more manageable. From removing the stigma to assisting with reintegration, the benefits of family support during this process are numerous.
Removing the Stigma
Often, what keeps people from getting help when they’re struggling with mental health is the worry that others will find out. That includes their family members. When the family decides to get involved and offer their support, the chances of the person getting help can improve because they have one less thing to stress about.
Improving Recovery Rates
Not only are people who get family support more likely to get help, but they also tend to stick with their treatment for longer. The time between symptom relapses tends to increase, and the number of relapses decreases. People who have family support may also adhere to their medications better than those who don’t.
When family members are involved in recovery, they can also catch any signs of problems early, ensuring that their loved one receives care quickly. Faster help can also improve recovery rates.
Mending Relationships
Mental health struggles can strain relationships. But family members who offer support and are involved in the recovery process can participate in family therapy sessions that offer ways of mending relationships.
Assisting With Reintegration
A common challenge for those who have been through the recovery process is finding their way back into the “real” world. This transition can be particularly difficult for people who have spent time at residential treatment facilities.
Family members can help bridge the gap between intensive treatment and regular life, creating a supportive environment that reduces stressors. They can also help with tasks that could feel overwhelming right after recovery, like finding a place to live.
Because stressors can quickly cause someone to relapse or experience worsening symptoms, having loved ones ready to help you adjust to the world outside of a recovery center can be essential.
Supervising Recovery
Additionally, family members can help hold you accountable. This is important for people suffering from substance use disorders, for example. Family can provide a bit of positive peer pressure that can urge them to get started on their 12-step programs or attend therapy sessions when they might otherwise have skipped them.
Relieving Sense of Isolation
A serious issue for those who have been through recovery is isolation. It can make mental health problems worse because isolation impacts stress levels and even affects sleep patterns. When family members are involved in the recovery process and offer support, isolation may be less likely to happen.
Challenges in Ensuring Family Engagement
Sadly, it’s not always easy to secure family engagement during recovery. This is commonly because of misconceptions surrounding mental health and certain concerns family members may have.
Mental Health Misconceptions
Those struggling with mental health concerns may not want their loved ones to know about the condition they suffer from. This can be because they don’t want to burden their loved ones, but it can also be the result of worrying about how their family members will perceive them.
There are many misconceptions about mental health that can keep patients from sharing their diagnosis with relatives out of fear of judgment.
Family Member Concerns
Family members themselves may hesitate to participate out of worry for their own privacy. This can be a particular issue if family factors have contributed to the person’s mental health concerns. Family members may not want to get involved for fear of being blamed or criticized for past actions.
Family members may also worry about the physical and psychological strain that caring for someone with a mental health condition can mean. They could hesitate to get involved for that reason.
How Family Therapy Sessions Can Help
One of the most vital tools available to help people struggling with mental health is family therapy. Family therapy is a type of talk therapy that strives to help family members communicate with one another more effectively. This therapy can be helpful for resolving psychological, emotional, or behavioral problems.
Improve Communication
A key benefit of family therapy is its ability to improve communication among family members. Communication can be the first casualty when a mental health concern arises, so it’s essential to find new and better ways of speaking with one another in such cases.
Therapy can also help with conflict resolution. Mental health conditions in the family can create conflicts, and the old ways of addressing problems may no longer be helpful. In therapy, families can relearn how to handle issues effectively — without damaging relationships.
Address Challenges
There may be family dynamics that impact the situation you or your loved one are going through. Instead of blaming one another, addressing the problem and tackling anything that may be contributing to it is more helpful.
Family therapy can help families identify problematic behaviors that they may not have realized were actually an issue. Dysfunctional interactions can then be handled in therapy sessions with the guidance of a family therapist.
Find Effective Treatment Steps
Family therapy doesn’t just help you understand what the problem is. It can also point you and your loved ones toward more effective ways of offering support to one another.
One of the most common issues families run into when there’s a mental health concern involved is not knowing how to help. This can result in taking actions that may not be useful for the person who’s suffering. With family therapy sessions, everyone can get on the same page and understand the kind of support their loved one needs.
Make Amends
Mental health conditions can lead to difficult moments that could leave scars in relationships. By speaking about these issues honestly and with the help of therapists, it’s possible for relationships to mend and for trust to flourish once more — even if it takes a bit of time.
Set Healthy Boundaries
Boundaries are vital for everyone involved in any kind of relationship. They allow all family members to offer healthy levels of support without sacrificing their well-being. In the long run, these boundaries help protect every family member’s mental health.
Begin Your Mental Health Recovery With Plus by APN
Mental health recovery can be a difficult road, but it can be even more so if you don’t have support from your family. This doesn’t mean your entire family has to be involved in your healing, but you do want to have someone close to you with whom you can be honest about what you’re going through.
At Plus by APN, we know just how important the right level of support is. That’s why we offer a variety of programs to suit different needs, from inpatient to outpatient options. We combine individual therapy sessions with group and family sessions to give you the exact assistance you need and ensure that your loved ones also get help.
With state-of-the-art facilities that provide evidence-based behavioral therapy with holistic care and neurofeedback services, our team is here to help you navigate your recovery journey and achieve wellness. Call us at 424.644.6486 or message us to schedule an appointment with one of our professionals today.
References
- Conroy, J., Lin, L., & Ghaness, A. (2020, July 1). Why people aren’t getting the care they need. Monitor on Psychology, 51(5). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/07/datapoint-care
- Ong, Hatta Santoso et al. “Family engagement as part of managing patients with mental illness in primary care.” Singapore medical journal vol. 62,5 (2021): 213-219. doi:10.11622/smedj.2021057
- Novotney, Amy. “The Risks of Social Isolation.” American Psychological Association, May 2019, www.apa.org/monitor/2019/05/ce-corner-isolation.