The ninth class serves to introduce ways to care for the self while taking on the responsibility for care of a relative with a mental disorder, particularly when there is so little social and public support for this kind of family crisis. Participants will discuss both the practical and emotional burdens of coping with these types of diseases, overcoming guilt and shame about our feelings regarding our new role in the family. Frankness and honesty are encouraged as the participants meet in small subgroups to share their feelings. The entire group will then discuss ways to achieve a balance between caring for our ill relative while living our own lives as fully as possible.

Introduction: The Concepts of Family Burden and Self-care in Family Education

• Objective life burden of caring for a chronically ill family member
• Subjective life burden of emotional reaction to this situation

Self-care: Talking About the Objective Life Burdens We Bear in Our Various Family Roles

• "Relative" differences in objective life burdens
• Relative Group Exercise
• Talking together frankly in our "relative" subgroups about hwo mental illness in our family has affected our lives
• Preparing a message together in our subgroups about our experience as parents, spouses, siblings and children to report back to the whole group

Self-care: Talking About the Subjective Burden of our Painful and Hidden Feelings

• Our feelings of anger, entrapment and guilt
• Our feelings of grief
• Some final observations
• Class Reading: Principles of Living a Balanced Life