Building Children's Resilience in the Face of Parental Mental Illness: Conversations with Children, Parents and Professionals - Paperback

by Alan Cooklin (Editor), Gill Gorell Barnes (Editor)

Mental illness in a parent presents children with multiple challenges, including stigma, self-doubt and self-blame, ongoing anxiety and depression, that are rarely discussed in the public domain. This important new book, written by young people who have lived through these experiences, as well as professionals working alongside their families, highlights the relationships between children, parents and professionals, and the emotional issues they all face.

A key focus of the book is the relationships in all combinations between the children, parents and professionals, as well as the responses to each other illustrated throughout. It will be ideal for all those working in the health, social and educational professions, as well as parents and children themselves.

Author Biography

Alan Cooklin has worked as a family therapist, psychiatrist, and child and adolescent psychiatrist for some 45 years. For the past 20 years he has developed the multi-family Kidstime Workshops for the children of parents with mental illness and their families, and in 2012 established the charity (The Kidstime Foundation, later Our Time) to disseminate this approach. He has published widely.

Gill Gorell Barnes has been a family therapist, published researcher, and university lecturer for over 35 years, as well as working as expert witness in the family courts for 15 years. Her focus on children in families afflicted by parental mental illness and other sources of extreme behaviour includes all varieties of family life. She has published widely.