Reviewed
By Hugh Brady:
A Book
Worth Reading:
I just finished reading an
excellent book on how to help someone who has mental
illness: I Am Not Sick I Don’t Need Help: How to Help
Someone with Mental Illness Accept Treatment by Dr.
Xavier Amador.
I can’t recommend it
highly enough. It is a book that anyone who has a mentally
ill family member or who deals with mental illness on a
professional level will certainly want to read.
One of the problems that many of us
have faced is that our mentally ill family members don’t
want treatment. In spite of plain-as-day evidence, our
family members frequently don’t think they’re ill— they
don’t see that anything’s wrong with them. Dr. Amador’s
book examines the reasons for that lack of self awareness
and provides a plan and strategies for dealing with persons
suffering from this problem.
Dr. Amador, who is a professor in
clinical psychology at Columbia University and who sits on
NAMI’s Board of Directors, has done a great deal of research
into the areas of the brain which are damaged by mental
illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He is a
practicing clinical psychologist and has a brother with
schizophrenia. So he has lived face to face with its
problems.
Amador shows that many mental illnesses
strike the areas of the brain that deal with self concept
and self awareness. So the same brain malfunctions which
lead to confused thinking and the inability to concentrate
also lead to an inability to perceive themselves
accurately. It’s not that they’re in denial; it’s that they
really can’t see there’s anything wrong with them.
Amador uses this example: Suppose you
went home one day and found that your family had locked you
out of the house. You ask to be let in. They tell you that
you don’t live there anymore. You insist that you do. They
eventually call the police and escort you off the premises.
They tell you that you are ill and need treatment. You say
that you don’t. Why? Because you know you are not ill and
you know you live there. You really know it. And your
family’s insistence that you need treatment would not
convince you that you do need it. People with mental
illness have the same certainty.
How family members and practitioners
should deal with this problem is the focus of two-thirds of
Amador’s book. There is much more than I can summarize
here, but the gist of it is that we need to stop talking and
start listening. Telling our mentally ill relatives or
patients that they’re ill won’t work. They just don’t
believe us, and no amount of repeating the message will
convince them. Instead, Dr. Amador shows that we need to
listen to their lived experience. We need to understand how
the world looks from their point of view and start from
there.
But don’t take it from me; instead run
to your local library or bookstore and read the book
yourself. You’ll be glad you did.
By Hugh
Brady
