Family Experiences with Mental Illness

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Tessler and Gamache provide substantial research on the impact of mental illness on the family through interviews conducted with hundreds of family members between 1989 and 1997. According to the authors, how families experience the mental illness of a relative depends on many social factors, including how public mental health services are organized and financed, and whether families feel judged or supported by professionals. Most family members experience a range of emotions toward one another ranging from warmth and gratification to anger and rejection. Tessler and Gamache detail the family experience with mental illness in terms of both negative and positive feelings. They take a holistic approach to the family experience and present a variety of family responses and dilemmas. The family members whose stories are told are diverse in respect to race, gender, age, and relationship, and the demographic-clinical characteristics of their relatives with mental illness. Tessler and Gamache find that the amount of burden that family members experience depends, in part, on which dimension of burden is being addressed. When burden is defined as assistance in daily living, it is less than what was thought. On the other hand, the subjective burden associated with supervision and control is substantial. Family role and residence contribute to most dimensions of burden. For example, a mother living with an adult son with schizophrenia will experience mental illness differently than the brother who has moved out of the family home and moved to another state. In both studies, a major finding involved lower than expected expenditures by family members for medication and mental health treatment in both studies. Most expenditures were focused instead on personal or survival needs, which for a sub-sample of family members involves considerable expenditures. This work is an important research finding for scholars, students, and professionals involved with social work, public health, and public mental health policy.

Reviews

.,."this book is an excellent resource for those who are interested in the dilemmas of family caregiving for mentally ill persons....given the book's breadth and readability, I would recommend this book to practitioners, academicians, and undergraduate and graduate students."-Journal of Marriage and Family
.,."I highly recommend this book and have added it to my required reading list in my Seminar on the Sociology of Mental Illness."-Health, Illness, and Medicine
...this book is an excellent resource for those who are interested in the dilemmas of family caregiving for mentally ill persons....given the book's breadth and readability, I would recommend this book to practitioners, academicians, and undergraduate and graduate students.-Journal of Marriage and Family
...I highly recommend this book and have added it to my required reading list in my Seminar on the Sociology of Mental Illness.-Health, Illness, and Medicine
Tessler and Gamache make a solid contribution to knowledge about the impact of mental illness on families....The volume is literally packed with material to inform and guide service providers and other mental health stakeholders. It should be required reading in programs that prepare practitioners for the mental health professions.-Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare
This work is important for scholars, students, and professionals involved in social work, public health, and public mental health policy.-Canadian Association of Social Workers Bulletin
Through a balanced use of both qualitative and quantitative procedures, the authors present not only the numbers but also the meaning behind the numbers. Such a research procedure also has the power to reveal unexpected relationships....required reading for all graduate students in the helping professions, medical students, and residents in psychiatry, this volume may also prove useful to upper-division undergraduates studying psychology or sociology.-Choice
What this book accomplishes is to begin to reverse the traditional focus of family research in mental health.-Metapsychology
..."this book is an excellent resource for those who are interested in the dilemmas of family caregiving for mentally ill persons....given the book's breadth and readability, I would recommend this book to practitioners, academicians, and undergraduate and graduate students."-Journal of Marriage and Family
..."I highly recommend this book and have added it to my required reading list in my Seminar on the Sociology of Mental Illness."-Health, Illness, and Medicine
"Tessler and Gamache make a solid contribution to knowledge about the impact of mental illness on families....The volume is literally packed with material to inform and guide service providers and other mental health stakeholders. It should be required reading in programs that prepare practitioners for the mental health professions."-Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare
"This work is important for scholars, students, and professionals involved in social work, public health, and public mental health policy."-Canadian Association of Social Workers Bulletin
"What this book accomplishes is to begin to reverse the traditional focus of family research in mental health."-Metapsychology
"Through a balanced use of both qualitative and quantitative procedures, the authors present not only the numbers but also the meaning behind the numbers. Such a research procedure also has the power to reveal unexpected relationships....required reading for all graduate students in the helping professions, medical students, and residents in psychiatry, this volume may also prove useful to upper-division undergraduates studying psychology or sociology."-Choice

Author Bio

RICHARD TESSLER is Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the University of Massachusetts' Social and Demographic Research Institute. He is the senior author of The Chronically Mentally Ill: Assessing Community Support Programs and West Meets East: Americans Adopt Chinese Children (Bergin & Garvey, 1999). GAIL GAMACHE is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Massachusetts. She has published numerous articles with Richard Tessler, and they recently co-authored, with Liming Liu, West Meets East: Americans Adopt Chinese Children (Bergin & Garvey, 1999).