Finding My Way

Finding My Way
Michelle D. Sherman, Ph.D & DeAnne M. Sherman
Seeds of Hope Books
ISBN: 1592981178
Non-Fiction, Young Adult, Self Help, Health
Reviewed by John R. Clark

When I was working in the mental health field with adolescents, we frequently dealt with teens and pre-teens who had been hospitalized, but had nothing wrong with them. Invariably they had been identified as the 'problem' by a family in crisis as a way of taking the focus off the member or members whose pathology was causing chaos and pain for the entire family unit. When those on the treatment team sat down with the kid and said in so many words; "You're OK, it's your family that's a mess," it was gratifying to see the light of awareness and relief come into their eyes. Finding My Way: a teen's guide to living with a parent who has experiences trauma and the companion volume I'm Not Alone: a teen's guide to living with a parent who has a mental illness provide the same message of comfort and reassurance.
In Finding My Way, Michelle and DeAnne Sherman outline everything a teen/pre-teen experiences when a parent is in traumatic stress. The book not only gives teen readers a succinct description of what they are seeing in a parent, but how to express their own feelings, who to tell, where to look for help and support and most important, where the boundary lines are in terms of things like guilt, powerlessness and blame.
Both books are highly recommended for school health professionals, health science libraries, school and public libraries. In fact, any of these institutions where the incidence of traumatic stress is increased might want to have multiple copies on hand. I wish these books had been around when I was working with teens. They would have saved them from a great deal of unnecessary suffering.