Turner Whynot is a psychiatrist looking for reason within his work. He is searching for more than the prescriptions and the textbooks that psychiatrists rely upon to treat the mentally ill. Why does he look after the sick? Is it something divine that's within us all, or some other driving force? Turner begins to find answers to these questions when he and his wife travel to the south shore of Nova Scotia and meet Adam, a patient in a psychiatric facility there who wants peace from a world that has brought him pain. Adam tells the Whynots the story of his own promise, an experience that may bring truth to the reality they all share, or to a reality that is perhaps just his own. Based on the author's own experiences and struggles with schizophrenia, "Promises" tells the story of how love offers the key to recovery and understanding of mental illness.