I've often shared the following with individuals who are in a recovery phase of their experience but it's worth emphasizing that caregivers often benefit from developing their own support teams and toolboxes. Forgive me if you've read it before -- it's a cut and paste.


Support Teams are comprised of people you find helpful and should include: Professionals; Family and Friends; Peers, and; Mentors. Each member of your team can address unique needs.

• Professionals provide medical and psychotherapeutic care and may include psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, therapists, general practioners, nurses, nutritionists, massage therapists, etc.

• Family and Friends provide connection, meaning, purpose and are often in a unique position to provide vital feedback. For example, if you are taking a new medication your family will be very much aware if it is working for you. Or if you are beginning to slip into a depressive, manic or psychotic episode, they may well become aware of it before you do.

• Peers are especially important because, in my experience, they can often provide the best forms of emotional support and understanding -- they have been there; they have walked in your shoes; they know what it's like. Many people look to their family and friends to offer peer support but these people may lack the insight that shared experience can offer. They can also be so intimately involved and deeply impacted by your experience that they lack the ability to provide impartial support and may, in fact, require their own support team. The latter will be especially true for those who are in a position of primary caretaker.

• Mentors serve in a unique capacity because these are the people who inspire you to reach for your best. Mentors can be drawn from any other area of your support team (i.e. a family member can be a mentor) but more likely, they will be drawn from the larger world around you. It's not necessary that any chosen mentors also carry a diagnosis of any kind of mental illness; rather, they simply need to have been another human being who faced some enormous challenges and either overcame them or turned them to his/her advantage. If your support team does not have at least a few mentors on it, your team is lacking. One point worth emphasizing is that Mentors must be self-chosen. It's also worth noting that they needn't be alive; some of my mentors have included Helen Keller, Viktor Frankl and my own mother -- all of whom are dead.

Support Toolboxes are made up of things you (and members of your Support Team) recognize as beneficial and helpful. Support toolboxes can be quite unique because what we find helpful on an individual basis may vary considerably. They may include things such as education, exercise, medication, meditation, music, nutritional therapies, spiritual practices, personal journalling, etc.

A strong Support Team and a well-equipped Support Toolbox greatly increases the odds that if you're floundering in any capacity, you'll be able to find the person or thing that is most going to help take you forward. So, choose your team wisely and outfit your toolbox with care.