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Description
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 970 million people in the world are suffering from a mental disorder. That’s one in eight. Consider the number of people who are affected by those 970 million people, whether they are friends, family members, or caregivers.
The harsh truth is that even though mental health isn’t transmitted like a virus, we are still susceptible to feeling its effects from someone else. The symptoms of mental illness can impact us negatively and put our own mental well-being at risk. In short, mental health decline is contagious.
Someone can have an anxiety disorder, for example, and it can create anxiety in others around them. That’s a mild example. The more serious the mental disorder, the more at risk those of us around that person will be.
The Mental Health Contagion™: Navigating Yourself Through a Loved One’s Mental Well-Being Decline will be for people who are challenged in their relationship with someone suffering from a mental problem, disorder, or crisis. The book will be geared toward helping them avoid the contagion through proper self-care. But the self-care in this book will not just be about taking hot baths and getting massages. It will be an in-depth look at what we can do to prevent our own mental well-being decline while we care for our loved ones
Review
“Thank you Yvette for the invite to write the Introduction. Highly recommend this factual, practical and down to earth resource for those struggling and in need of help. From my generational viewpoint this is a work I very much would have appreciated during my own experiences. Bravo, this insightful guide book and the tools provided are very topical and long overdue. Very Proud of you, your colleagues and all the front liners in the health and caring professions.“
– Kevin B Murray, Author
“Rating: 4.8/5
Reactions & Emotional Impact
Murray’s The Mental Health Contagion is a groundbreaking and deeply compassionate exploration of a rarely discussed phenomenon: the ripple effects of mental illness on caregivers and loved ones.
As someone who has supported a family member through mental health struggles, I found Murray’s premise—that emotional distress can spread like contagion—both validating and unsettling.
Her analogy of mental health decline as a contagion (while carefully distinguishing it from viral transmission) resonated powerfully, putting words to the exhaustion, anxiety, and guilt I’d felt but couldn’t articulate.
The chapter on boundary-setting as self-preservation was particularly transformative, reframing self-care not as indulgence but as a necessary shield against emotional burnout.
By the end, I felt equipped with tools to protect my well-being without abandoning my loved one—a balance I’d previously thought impossible.“
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– Sarah Jensen at GoodReads.com
