by Ingrid Waldron, NAMI Main Line PA[1] [2] [3]

Summary

Communication is a two-way process. – Why and How to Listen Well
Good listening helps you to understand the experiences of your loved one with mental illness and helps him to feel heard and eventually more willing to cooperate to solve problems. Listen to understand what the person is experiencing. Your responses should show that you have understood what the person has said, seek additional information if appropriate, and express empathy with his feelings. [7]  Read more in Section I.

Expressing Yourself Effectively
Try to create a positive, supportive environment to prevent problems. To try to solve a problem, be specific about the problem and the proposed behavioral change; use clear and concise I statements; be calm, flexible and patient. Read more in Section II.

LEAP [5] = Listen, Empathize, Agree, Partner
After building up trust by listening and empathizing, identify a goal that you both want and then partner to work together toward this goal. Read more in Section III.

Our emotions affect how we communicate.
Deal with your fears and/or anger, so your emotions don’t interfere with compassionate, effective communication. Remember that her difficult behavior is often a symptom of her mental illness, rather than unkind, thoughtless or manipulative behavior. Read more in Section IV.

 

Additional Resources in Section V

I.  Communication is a two-way process. – Why and How to Listen Well

Successful communication begins with good listening. Over time, good listening will allow you to:

  • gain valuable insight into the experiences and motivations of your loved one;
  • help him to feel heard and understood, which usually will increase his willingness to hear what you have to say.

Focus your attention on understanding your loved one and put all your other agenda items aside for the time being.  Although you are eager to accomplish helpful changes for your loved one, you will be more effective in helping him if you postpone any advice or suggestions until he feels heard and understood and asks for your opinion.

Practice reflective listening.

  • Listen with the goal of understanding.
  • Reflect back what you have heard and ask whether you have understood your loved one accurately.
  • Ask questions to improve your understanding of her experiences and point of view.
  • Express empathy for what he is feeling.

To practice reflective listening, you can say:

  • “Let me see if I have this right.  Are you saying that …?”
  • “I hear you saying …. Did I get that right?”
  • “If I heard you correctly, you said that … Is that right?”
    or “Can you tell me more about that?”
    or “Can you help me understand that?”
    or “I can understand why you feel/want …”
    or “How do you feel about that?”

You can use nonverbal responses (e.g. nodding your head or “mm hmm”). Sometimes your loved one may appreciate eye contact and other times eye contact may make him uncomfortable.

If you are just beginning to use reflective listening with your loved one, you may want to begin by saying something like “Today, I’m going to try something a little different.  I’m going to try to understand how you really feel and what you really want by listening very carefully to what you have to say.”  If appropriate, you may want to apologize for not listening in the past.

Avoid reactive listening. Listen to understand, instead of thinking about how you can argue back or convince the person to change his wrong beliefs. Avoid interrupting or criticizing. Even if he criticizes you, don’t argue.  Recognize that criticisms and blame generally come from the illness and typically have little to do with you personally.

Even if you disagree with his interpretations of reality, try to understand his experiences, point of view, hopes, fears, and beliefs about himself and his situation.  Your goal is to understand his reality from his point of view, even if he is psychotic (out of touch with reality from most people’s point of view).

Remember that a mentally ill person may have anosognosia (the inability to perceive his mental illness) and/or delusions (fixed beliefs that do not change in response to evidence to the contrary). In general, arguing about what is real will not be useful.

You may need to set limits on when, where and how long you can listen.  Try to choose a time and place when your loved one wants to talk and you will be able to focus your attention on listening well.  When you need a break from listening, say something like “I’m sorry.  I know you probably have more to say, but I need to take a break now.”  This type of limit setting helps to make it safe for you and your loved one, and will help you to remain calm as you listen.

If your loved one doesn’t want to talk to you, you may find that he is more willing to talk if you can reduce the intensity of the interaction (e.g., by talking while engaged in a joint activity), or your loved one may be more willing to talk with someone else (e.g., another family member or friend).

These guidelines provide helpful general advice, but individuals and situations differ, so you will need to learn what works best in your situation and develop approaches that work well for you and your loved one.

II.  Expressing Yourself Effectively

Sometimes the primary goal of a conversation with your loved one will be to help him get through a difficult time. This is best accomplished by reflective listening and empathy, as described in the previous section.

It is also important to explicitly recognize your loved one’s positive qualities and behaviors. A person who has a mental illness often hears lots of negative comments, both from other people and sometimes from the voices he hears. Many people with mental illness feel bad about themselves. It can be very helpful to hear praise for his positive qualities and behaviors. Give reassurance and hope.

It is often more effective to focus on creating a positive, supportive environment that prevents problems, instead of dealing with problems after they arise.

At other times, you may want to address a challenging topic and try to solve a problem. You may need to postpone this type of conversation until you have established a relationship of trust, so your loved one is willing to listen to you. Try to choose a time when you are both calm. Think about what the best setting would be for a conversation with your loved one; in some cases, it will be best to choose a time and place where you will not be interrupted, but in other cases your conversation may be more successful in a semipublic venue like a restaurant.

When you speak:

  • Use a calm tone of voice and speaking style.
  • Use brief, concise sentences (since a person with mental illness may have be hearing voices or have cognitive impairment, which can make it hard to process input).
  • Allow time for your loved one to process what you have said and respond.

Be thoughtful about how you describe a problem. Aim to present a problem in a way that won’t trigger emotional reactions that preclude reasonable discussion.

  • Use “I statements”. You statements often imply blame, which tends to make your loved one angry and uncooperative.
  • Describe a specific behavior that is of concern.
  • Avoid attributing the behavior to character flaws or assumed motivations.
  • Avoid terms such as “always” and “never”.

For example, if your loved one lives with you and has a habit of disappearing for several days, you may be inclined to say “I’m so upset! You were missing for days, and I didn’t know where you were. You’re always so inconsiderate. You never think about my feelings.” Instead, to improve your probability of having a useful conversation, say “I get very worried when you’re gone for several days, and I don’t know where you are.”

If you want to propose a change:

  • Try to focus on a single specific proposal.
  • Think about your loved one’s motivations and how you can present your proposed change in a way that will appeal to his motivations (e.g. offer some thing, activity or privilege he wants or appeal to his self-image or concern for you and other family members).
  • Be flexible in considering alternative solutions that may be a better compromise that meets the most important needs of each person.

For example, you could propose that your loved one text you every morning when he wakes up, just to reassure you. You can be flexible about the timing of the text, but insist on a text to you every 24 hours.

It is important to recognize that most problems or issues are not resolved in a single conversation.  Instead, it usually takes a long series of conversations with reflective listening and empathy to accumulate the understanding and build up the trust needed to solve problems. Also, behavioral change usually takes time and occurs gradually. (Think about your own efforts to increase exercise, improve your diet, stop smoking, etc.) Before a person makes a significant change, there usually is a substantial period when his thinking is changing as he becomes more open to the possibility of change and begins to think about how he might change. Even after behavior begins to change, there will probably be relapses.

III.  LEAP[4]

LEAP is an effective method for communicating and collaborating with a mentally ill loved one to solve problems. LEAP includes the following steps:

Listen: Listen to try to understand what the person is telling you about himself and his experiences.  Reflect back what you have heard, without your opinions and ideas.

Empathize: Empathize with how the person feels about his experiences and symptoms (without necessarily agreeing with his view of reality; e.g. “That sounds scary.  Do you feel frightened?”).

Agree: Find areas of agreement, especially goals you both want (e.g. to stay out of the hospital)

Partner: Collaborate to work toward agreed upon goals.

During the listening step:

  • Use reflective listening (see section I).
  • Do not give your opinion unless asked; even when asked, delay giving your opinion as long as possible, promising to give your opinion later, after you have learned more and understood what your loved one has to say. If possible, postpone responding to any requests that you do something; say something like “We can discuss that later, but first I need to understand more about what you are thinking and feeling.”
  • If you have listened well and built up understanding, you are more likely to be able to provide your input in a way that your loved one will be able to hear. If your loved one is actively soliciting your input and has come to trust you, he is much more likely to listen to your input with interest.

The agree step should be based on understanding what your loved one wants and figuring out at least one goal that you both want. This does not mean pressuring your loved one to agree to what you want.

In the partner step, you may want to work with your loved one to:

  • identify one or two specific goals within the overall goal you have agreed on
  • identify specific steps toward achieving this goal
  • agree on what each of you will do to carry out these steps
  • perhaps agree on a time frame for carrying out the first steps 

IV. Our emotions affect how we communicate.

To listen and communicate well, you will need to be calm. At time, you will probably find it challenging to cope with your loved one’s pain, anger, criticism and/or blame. You will be better able to help him if you can maintain some emotional distance so you do not drown in his pain. To stay calm, you may find it helpful to do deep breathing if you start to get upset while you are listening.

Identify and deal with any anger or fears you may have about your loved one. Even when you don’t talk about your negative emotions, your nonverbal expression of these emotions may upset your loved one, which may exacerbate his illness. To reduce your anger, it may help to remember that your loved one’s difficult behavior is usually a symptom of his mental illness rather than unkind, thoughtless, or manipulative behavior that he could stop if he would only try to change his behavior.

Find some way to process the negative emotions that you may experience as you communicate with your loved one with mental illness. For example, seek out someone who can listen well to you as you process these emotions.

Take good care of yourself so you will be able to stay well and cope with the long-term stresses of having a loved one with severe mental illness.  We encourage you to take advantage of the helpful programs offered by NAMI (https://namimainlinepa.org/support/; https://www.nami.org/Find-Support) and other similar organizations.

V.  Additional Resources

NAMI resources include:

LEAP resources are available at https://leapinstitute.org/home, including videos (https://leapinstitute.org/free-leap-vids) and I Am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help! How To Help Someone Accept Treatment – 20th Anniversary Edition by Dr. Xavier Amador (available in paperback or for Kindle). [6]

Mental Health First Aid provides useful guidelines for helping someone with depression, panic, psychosis, problem substance use, etc. (https://mhfa.com.au/cms/guidelines). A Guide for Caregivers of People with Mental Illness is available at https://mhfa.com.au/sites/default/files/MHFA_carers_guidelinesA4.pdf. To sign up for an 8-hour Mental Health First Aid course, go to https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/take-a-course/

Endnotes

[1] Available at https://namimainlinepa.org/communicating-with-a-loved-one-who-has-a-mental-illness/ (updated May 2023)

[2] If your loved one appears to be at risk for suicide, self-harm, or harming others, you should seek prompt professional help, e.g. by calling 988 or 911 if there is an immediate danger of physical harm (https://namimainlinepa.org/crisis-numbers/).

[3] I am indebted to I Am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help! by Xavier Amador for some of the ideas in this presentation. I am grateful for helpful input and suggestions from Carolyn Ballinger, Ellen Berman, Katie Eyer, Bruce Fay, Sarah Freudberg, Judy Green, Loran Kundra, Michi Rose, and Aita Susi.

[4] For simplicity, I will use the masculine form of the third-person singular pronoun, but please read this as he/she, his/her, and him/her.

[5] LEAP is a registered trademark®. LEAP was developed by Dr. Xavier Amador. Additional information is available in the recommended resources listed in Section V.

[6] This book is very helpful, but you should be aware of the following caution.  The examples given in the book generally include skillful professional interpretations and problem solving, and these examples appear to illustrate significant progress in a short time.  In our experience, we rarely replicate this type of success, but over time we can substantially help our loved ones with lay reflective listening and empathy skills.

 

Page last updated in May 2023.