Dr. Alec Pollard: When a Loved One Won’t Seek Mental Health Treatment

Thoughts on Record: Podcast of the Ottawa Institute of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Many clinicians experience a sense of helplessness around effectively managing calls from loved ones of an individual living with a mental illness who is not willing to engage in treatment. There is frequently an impression that little can be done until the affected individual wants to change. Dr. Alec Pollard joins us for a discussion of he and his co-authors new book "When a Loved One Won't Seek Mental Health Treatment". In this conversation we cover:

• why Dr. Pollard and co-authors wanted to write this book
• the challenge for clinicians in fielding calls from loved ones seeking treatment for a loved one who is not motivated to engage in change
• where traditional approaches to a treatment avoidant loved one have fallen short
• operationally defining "treatment avoidance" through a lens of non-blame
• teasing apart the impact of symptoms vs. treatment avoidance
• understanding how the loop of accomodation-minimization within the "family trap" can keep an individual stuck in treatment avoidance
• contextualizing the counterintuitive impact of accommodation
• considering the extent to which family members are realistically positioned to provide assistance to family members given the complexities involved and the slippery slope of the family trap
• parallels to the family trap within the client-therapist relationship
• the line between clear, transparent boundaries and minimization on the part of the family member and the temporal course matters
• why their approach focuses almost exclusively on the family member as opposed to the loved one that won't seek treatment
• creating a recovery friendly environment
• the complications that personality challenges in either a family member and/or client can present
• understanding when a family when should enlisting professional assistance
• how to discuss this conundrum with a family member who calls for assistance with a loved one

C. Alec Pollard, PhD, is founding director of the Center for OCD & Anxiety-Related Disorders at Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute, and professor emeritus of family and community medicine at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. He is a licensed psychologist with a special interest in the study and treatment of individuals with anxiety and emotional disorders who refuse or otherwise fail to benefit from evidence-based treatment. Pollard, codeveloper of the family well-being approach (FWBA), has authored or coauthored more than one hundred publications and leads the Family Consultation Team at Saint Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute.