The goal of this book is two fold: to educate the family member and / or caregiver about their loved one's disease, and second, to equip the reader with identified strategies to assist them in helping their loved one navigate through their mental illness diagnosis successfully and to live a high-functioning life. The book begins by introducing the reader to mom, Savannah Rutledge, and her son, Adam P. Rutledge, who today is a practicing attorney living successfully with a bipolar diagnosis. Meet, Linda Denke, PhD, who dialogues and walks alongside her reader as together they navigate the mental-health system. As a nurse leader and national speaker, she recently presented at the 2014 American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) for the Magnet Recognition Program which credential nursing best practices and success strategies worldwide. Her contributions include mental health nursing education, training, coaching, mentoring, innovation, clinical excellence, and research aficionado. "Dr. Denke takes us through an intensely personal and at times frightening and heartbreaking experience of a mother learning of her son's diagnosis with mental illness. We are then offered hope as she shares a very practical step-by-step approach which families can use to fully engage in the process of recovery with their loved one. This is a must read for those willing to share in both the challenges and the joys of a path to achieve a high functioning outcome." -Sherry Cusumano, MS, RN, LCDC Executive Director of Community Education and Clinical Development President of NAMI Dallas NAMI TX Board of Directors and Vice Chair of the Public Policy Committee "Linda Denke, Ph.D., has written an excellent book from the perspective of a highly educated and intelligent health professional with the personal experience of having had serious mental illness in her immediate family. She puts forth well thought out strategies for families to assist them in dealing with these conditions. Her "Found Approach" to dealing with the problems of mental illness is a practical, straightforward framework for preparing for the very difficult job of dealing with mental illness." "I would recommend the book, Breakthrough: Moving beyond your mental illness diagnosis to YOUR highest functioning outcomes, to any family who might be struggling with a mentally ill loved one, and to any mental health professional interested in an articulate expression concerning mental illness, from a family member's perspective." -Fred Frese, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychiatry Northeast Ohio Medical University Coordinator, Recovery Project "Breakthrough is an intimate and accessible book for caregivers of people with serious psychiatric disabilities who may be feeling overwhelmed in the face of major life changes for themselves and their loved ones. Denke's book draws on the important expertise of a person in recovery and their caregiver, as well as decades of clinical and personal experience, to help families move forward as a team." -Neely Myers, PhD, Southern Methodist University, author of Recovery's Edge: Moral Agency and Mental Health Care in the US