When I think about where this work began for me, I go back to 2008.
At that time, I was a practicum student, and I began working with individuals and families impacted by serious mental health conditions, including psychotic spectrum disorders. What I came to understand very quickly is something that has stayed with me ever since: no one experiences these conditions in isolation.
A severe mental health condition affects an individual, of course. But it also touches parents, siblings, partners, extended family, friends, and often the professionals who step in to help hold care together. The effects ripple through entire systems. As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, that truth has always been where my heart is.
My passion has never been limited to understanding symptoms alone. It has always been about deeply understanding people in context — their relationships, their histories, their environments, the patterns that form around suffering, and the ways healing becomes possible when people no longer have to carry those burdens alone.
That heart for systemic work is a large part of what brought me into this field, and it is a large part of what continues to guide me as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Anew Treatment Center.
At Anew, we care for adults and families navigating complex psychiatric disorders. “Complexity” can mean many things. Often, it includes the reality that the onset of a severe mental health condition occurs during pivotal developmental years, interrupting identity formation, relational development, education, independence, and a person’s sense of safety in the world. Over time, individuals and families may develop ways of coping, protecting, accommodating, or surviving that make sense in context — but that can also become barriers to healing.
This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in thoughtful, comprehensive, community-based treatment.
When people have lived through fear, instability, confusion, repeated crises, or prolonged disconnection, healing rarely happens through insight alone. It requires safety. It requires consistency. It requires relationships sturdy enough to hold both struggle and growth. And very often, it requires a treatment environment where new ways of being can be learned, practiced, supported, and reinforced over time.
I hold deeply to the belief that many of the patterns people develop in the context of suffering are learned in adaptation — and because they are learned, many of them can also be unlearned. That process is rarely simple, and it is never about blame. It is about understanding. It is about compassion. It is about creating an environment where change is possible because people feel safe enough to risk something different.
For many of the individuals and families we serve, isolation is one of the most painful parts of the experience. Families often spend years trying to make sense of what is happening, trying to find the right support, trying to hold hope, and often doing so while feeling very alone. One of my goals — and one of the things that has always mattered most to me — is helping create a place where that isolation begins to soften.
Anew is not only a place for comprehensive treatment. It is also a place of community.
My hope is that through this blog, I can share more of what I have learned over the years about family systems, recovery, relational healing, and the realities of working with severe and complex mental health conditions. I hope this becomes a space where families feel seen, where professionals feel connected to a broader conversation, and where those seeking help encounter not just information, but humanity.
Because at the center of this work, for me, has always been the same belief:
People heal best in environments where they are understood, supported, and not left alone in the process.
Welcome to the conversation. I’m glad you’re here.
— Megan Harrison, LMFT
Chief Executive Officer & Managing Partner
Anew Treatment Center