Social Impact Authors: How & Why Authors Michelle Sherman and DeAnne Sherman Are Helping To Change Our World
Remember to take time for ourselves along the ride! We have been reminded of the necessity of taking time to play and take care of ourselves along the journey. This has looked different across the years, but has involved playing with Michelle’s puppy, going on walks, getting take-out from a favorite restaurant, or doing a little online shopping for cute clothes. We would often dream about opportunities to share our resources with others, including thinking about how I’d respond to interview questions like this!
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michelle Sherman and DeAnne Sherman.
Michelle D. Sherman, PhD LP ABPP, a licensed clinical psychologist, and her mother DeAnne Sherman, a mental health advocate, are co-authors of Loving Someone with a Mental Illness or History of Trauma: Skills, Hope and Strength for Your Journey and I’m Not Alone: A Teen’s Guide to Living With a Parent Who Has Mental Illness or a History of Trauma.
Michelle D. Sherman, PhD LP ABPP (she/her) is a licensed clinical psychologist who has dedicated her career to supporting families dealing with a mental illness or trauma/PTSD. She has worked in diverse settings, including the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system, private practice, and academia as a Professor at the University of Oklahoma and University of Minnesota Medical Schools.
Dr. Sherman is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), and is Board Certified in Couple and Family Psychology. She is the Editor in Chief of Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, the journal of APA’s Society of Couple and Family Psychology, and was named their Family Psychologist of the Year in 2022. She has published over 75 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and has given several hundred workshops nationally and internationally. She served on the Board of the Oklahoma National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) for 14 years and now enjoys volunteering with the Minnesota NAMI affiliate.
DeAnne M. Sherman (she/her) is a mental health advocate, French teacher, and choreographer. A volunteer with NAMI-Minnesota, she gives workshops with her daughter about mental illness in the family, and mentors people of all ages in the performing arts. DeAnne’s mission is to affirm, educate, and empower others; she has strong passions for combating stigma, offering hope to people who are hurting, celebrating diversity, and promoting open discussion about mental health.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
M&D: Thanks for the opportunity to respond to these questions. Some questions are answered by Michelle (M), some by DeAnne (D), and some by both (M&D).
We’re a daughter-mother, psychologist-advocate team living in St Paul, Minnesota. We both grew up in the Twin Cities. We both spent our young adult years in the midwestern/southern US, but, as many Minnesotans do, both returned to Minnesota to be near family. Family is very important to both of us, and it’s been a lovely experience for the two of us to be writing books together for ~20 years. Everyone in our family has supported us in various ways, and their practical help and emotional support have been invaluable!
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
M&D: Yes! Our early books were written for teenagers, including, “Finding My Way: A Teen’s Guide to Living with a Parent Who Has Experienced Trauma.” In that book, we described the symptom clusters of PTSD. In our attempt to be accurate, our early drafts used the technical term of “increased arousal” to refer to symptoms such as hypervigilance and startle response. However, we had many adult and teen reviewers, and received feedback that the teenage reader might think about something different with the term “arousal”…so we changed it to “Feeling tense and on edge.” We were reminded of the necessity of having a wide range of reviewers, especially to be sure we spoke appropriately to our intended reader!
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
M&D: Our mission statement and call-to-action is: Family members of people managing mental health problems and trauma have been invisible and unsupported for far too long. It is time to see, hear, and include them…recognize their sacrifices and contributions…and empower them with research-based information, practical skills, and hope.
We hope that our book helps family members/friends feel less alone. We want to challenge mental health professionals to more deeply consider families’ experiences and needs, and be aware of community resources for them.
In addition to our book for adults (“Loving someone with a mental illness: Skills, strength, and hope for your journey,” Johns Hopkins, January 2025), we want to note that we just released the second edition of a companion guide for teens, namely “I’m not alone: A teen’s guide to living with a parent who has a mental illness or history of trauma” (2024). It is an interactive book for youth whose parent has a mental illness/trauma/PTSD. This book focuses on providing information, offering skills, and building resilience among these young people. More information available on our website: www.SeedsofHopeBooks.com.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
M&D: We teach communication skills in our story about Mathias and his parents. Mathis is a 21-year old young man who manages major depression and lives with his parents. When his folks return home after a weekend away, they find Mathias asleep on the couch and the house in shambles. We have two scripts of sample conversations between the parents and Mathias about the situation, with round 1 demonstrating a shaming/critical approach and round 2 portraying respectful communication skills taught earlier in the chapter. The story addresses issues of medication adherence, use of marijuana, break-up of a dating relationship, and ways to simultaneously set limits and also offer support.
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
M: This book is the culmination of 30 years of clinical experience, working largely with family members of individuals managing a mental illness/PTSD. My development of family education curricula/resources was honestly sparked in the late 1990s when I saw so many family members in the mental health clinic waiting room where I worked. I reflected on the commonality of their needs, how lonely/isolated many felt, and how meaningful and useful it could be to support them…which led to my first grant way back in 1998 to start this work!
I have developed numerous resources over the past 30 years, but know that most people never access in-person programming. Therefore, I decided I wanted to put this accumulated knowledge/experience in a book form that anyone could access. I have learned tremendously from the clients/families I have been privileged to serve during these years, and have drawn upon these experiences in creating this book. In some ways, this interactive book is a “support group in book form”; it includes many passages from people with lived experience as families/friends who gave us permission to share their stories.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
M: I have published peer-reviewed research articles outlining the evaluation I have conducted with some of the family education curricula I created. Numerous positive outcomes have been found for family members, such as improved sense of empowerment, knowledge of mental illness, quality of life, and self-efficacy.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
M&D: Yes! As noted in our mission statement above, we are passionate about increasing attention to supporting caregivers/family members of people living with a mental illness/PTSD. More specifically, we call for greater funding for research to examine families’ needs, dedication of resources to offer programs/supports for families, increased inclusion of families in routine care, and continued efforts to combat stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness. All of the public policy efforts championed by organizations such as NAMI (e.g., increasing access to care, expanding parity for mental health, advocating for access to services to support full community engagement such as housing, education, and crisis services) will also help families.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
M&D: Leadership involves co-creating a shared vision, identifying and moving toward goals, affirming and celebrating contribution and progress, being responsive and available to teammates, showing up as a nonjudgmental and a ready-to-help-source of support when problems inevitably arise, helping overcome barriers and challenges, and consistently showing up with an optimistic, grateful and kind manner.
We have both had many meaningful leadership roles, in academia, healthcare settings, community boards, etc. Most recently, we have shared the privilege of serving as co-choreographers in numerous community theater musical productions. In that role, we have tried to emulate and live all of these values, working to help our performers feel good about themselves and bring the directors’ vision to light. We are affirmed when we hear feedback from sometimes-anxious performers that they trust us to make them look good on stage, and appreciate our enthusiasm, kindness, flexibility, and dedication.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
- Collaborating with a family member can deepen and strengthen your relationship immensely. Although some people advise against working closely with a family member, we’ve had an amazingly positive experience 99% of the time (which we think is pretty darn good!). Even when we disagreed, we respected each other’s perspectives. When the project felt overwhelming, the other person could step in and lighten the load, which sometimes looked like writing or editing a chapter…and other times literally involved cooking for each other and dusting their houses! This shared mother-daughter experience has been a huge blessing for both of us, and our synergy truly strengthens our books.
- Stop working and talking about book stuff at 9pm. Truly. Sometimes we’d be working late at night and had a rule that we had to stop discussing book stuff or we’d never fall asleep. Fact!
- Ask for help again and again and again. We’ve been humbled and incredibly grateful at the community of people, professionals and friends/family, who have supported us in this journey the past two decades. They have lifted us, challenged us, enlightened us, and educated us…all of which made our books immensely better.
- Keep focused on our mission (our “why”). At times the book writing process is just no fun. It’s a heck of a lot of detail-oriented work that can take a great deal of time. For example, creating an index for a 200+ page book? Exploring marketing options, public relations firms, legal issues, financial decisions? Yikes…it can be a lot and sometimes exhausting. We were buoyed by each other and by keeping our focus on WHY we wrote the books. We have been passionate and convinced throughout these 20 years that we are creating something useful for families who love someone with a mental illness or history of trauma. In both Michelle’s professional life and both of our personal lives, we see the need for our resources in the faces/stories of family members who are overwhelmed, confused, scared, and sad. The positive feedback from our early books and the response of “hey, I need that book” or “I wish I would have had that book years ago” validate our mission and continue to energize and sustain us.
- Remember to take time for ourselves along the ride! We have been reminded of the necessity of taking time to play and take care of ourselves along the journey. This has looked different across the years, but has involved playing with Michelle’s puppy, going on walks, getting take-out from a favorite restaurant, or doing a little online shopping for cute clothes. We would often dream about opportunities to share our resources with others, including thinking about how I’d respond to interview questions like this!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
M&D: “If you do something from your heart and for the right reasons, you never know where it’s going to take you” (Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom): As we worked tirelessly over the past 4.5 years, we drew inspiration from this quote. We are passionate about supporting families, and truly hope that our books will be sources of meaning, understanding, comfort, and hope.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
M&D: Patrick Kennedy — due to our admiration of his long-term commitment to issues surrounding mental health, including his recent book, “Profiles in mental health courage.”
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Our website is: www.SeedsofHopeBooks.com.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Authors Michelle Sherman and DeAnne Sherman Are Helping To Change… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.