Book excerpt: With current trends toward family care of individuals with major mental illness, it is now generally accepted that families need a firm knowledge base and a wide range of skills in order to cope with a mentally ill relative. Toward this end, educational programs are developing all over the country. However, little attention has been given to education as a discipline nor to the contributions that educational psychology can make to more effective instruction and skill development. A resource that will help professionals become more effective family educators , this is the first book to delineate the key elements for creating curricula in family education by combining what is known about mental illness with essential principles of education.