Hannah Edwards

UWRT 1102-203

Spillane

09 November 2017

Mental Health Stigma

When I initially started this paper I set out to answer how does mental health stigma

impact those who have a mental illness?. I chose this topic because mental health is not a new

topic, but it is becoming less and less of a taboo topic. But, due to its history of being a topic that

people didnt talk about it, it had a lot of negative stigmas and false facts surrounding it. And as

someone who knows several people who have a mental illness, I wanted to know how others

opinions of their mental illness has shaped how they think about it. As I gathered information

though, it became more and more clear to me that it impacts them negatively. Obviously having a

bunch of false stereotypes and beliefs surrounding you cant be a positive influence. So, this led

me to take a step back and reevaluate what I was going to do with all of this research I had

gathered. I didnt have a basis for an argumentative essay, but I could write about my research,

what Ive come to learn about stigma and the questions I still have. So, from all of the research

that I have done, it is obvious that mental health stigma impacts all people negatively.

The first step in my research that I needed to complete was to get a clear definition of

what stigma is. In order to prove that stigma impacts people negatively I needed to make sure I

understood all the ins and outs of stigma. The best definition I found was from psychologist

Patrick Corrigan, he stated, (1) it is fundamentally a label of an outgroup; (2) labeled

differences are negative; (3) differences separate us from them; and (4) label and separation lead

to status loss and discrimination (Developing 60). I agree with this because if you think of
any stereotype or prejudice it is usually about a minority group, with characteristics that are

labeled as bad which all leads to separating them from the rest of society through

discrimination. So what is the difference between stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination? A

lot of times people use the words discrimination, prejudice and stigma interchangeably, but those

words all mean different things. Stigma is another word for stereotypes meaning that it is the

attitudes about a group of people, prejudice is listening to stereotypes and agreeing with them,

and finally, discrimination are the behaviors that come from stigmas and prejudices (How

Stigma). So, for example, people who have schizophrenia are often labeled as dangerous,

mostly because of cases that have become popular in the media, and are then treated hostilely

and isolated from the rest of society. In this example the stigma is that they are dangerous, the

prejudice is agreeing with this and then finally, the discrimination is isolating these people. It is

important to note that not all stereotypes seem bad. According to Jake Jackson, a psychologist,

Similar to the nave attitudes denialism, the romantic attitude attempts to counteract and fill

depressions depths with shallow moralist distractions, meaning that romanticizing a mental

illness can be just as harmful as villainizing it (367). All of this information led me to ask myself

where stereotypes even come from? If they are so bad, why are they so prevalent in our society?

Patrick Corrigan provided the answer to this stating, Stereotypes are unavoidable; they are

learned as part of aging in a culture; (Developing 61). In my experience this has been true, as

I have gotten older I have become more and more aware of things that are different than what I

perceive to be normal. But, I have also learned that stereotypes are necessarily bad until you start

to believe and act on them. By this time in my research I had defined stigma and I had found out

how it is formed and what implications it has on society, but I still hadnt discovered how it

negatively impacted people. What repercussions did people with mental illness face from
discrimination? How are people who dont have a mental illness impacted by mental health

stigma? This led me to the next step in my research.

Now that I had a clear understanding about stigma and how it is formed I needed to know

what kinds of repercussions it has on society. One main way stigma impacts people who have a

mental illness is by preventing them from seeking treatment or impacting how well treatment

works for them (Davey). A lot of times people will not seek treatment because they are afraid of

how the people around them will react. And, like most stereotyping attitudes, it starts with

adolescents. This is when most people start to notice the differences between people and groups

and start to call attention to them. Wenfeng Zhao states that about one in eight students

admitted they would no pursue treatment for mental health concernsfor fear of being

stigmatized by their peers. Adolescents who have a mental illness are often teased and rejected

by their peers which can lead them to go untreated and cause their symptoms to worsen. As

Nikki Llewellyn, a girl who has suffered from mental illness and experienced the negative

effects of stigma herself, stated I'd seen people at school who were shunned because they were

"weird", and I was fiercely determined not to let that happen to me. She then started to lie about

her mental illness until it worsened to the point that she tried to take her own life (Llewellyn).

These negative stigmas can impact people who dont have a mental illness as well. It leads to a

society that it intolerant and judgmental, which then leads to cases like Nikki where someone is

so afraid of what society will think of them for having a mental illness that they just pretend like

they dont have one to the point where they do something drastic. Adults face the same

discrimination as well. As journalist Lindsay Holmes stated, People with a mental illness are

more likely to encounter law enforcement than get medical help during a psychological crisis.

There are currently more people with mental illness in jails and prisons than in hospitals. This
proves that we as a society are more willing to lock someone up for a medical issue that we dont

understand than we are to try and help them seek help. Stigma come from a group of people with

characteristics are different and we as a society tend to fear that. So we place all of these

negative connotations around it to try and separate them from us. It is preventing these people

from seeking help and it is landing them in prison. Mental health stigma can also prevent people

being open in their jobs because they are afraid if they disclose their condition then they will

potentially lose their job (Holmes). At this point in my research I realized that while stigma

impacts all of society negatively, it is those who dont suffer from mental illnesses that

perpetuate the stigmas and negative attitudes. As I learned earlier in my research, stigma is

something that is unavoidable, but maybe we as a society could learn to stop discriminating or at

least take up measures to combat against it.

At this point, I had completed all of the research that I had wanted. I now knew what

stigma is, how its formed, and its effects on society. All of my research however, led me to a

bigger question: How do we stop it? Or is it something that cant be stopped, but rather

something we have to take preventative measures against and hope that we as a society can

become a more tolerable place? From all of my research I had come to the conclusion that the

problem with stigma and why it keeps persisting is that people dont fully understand what

mental illness is and that scares them. So, the solution? Making more of an effort to educate

people on what mental illness is. We need to take the time to explain to people that mental illness

is no different than a physical ailment and that just because a person suffers from a mental illness

it does not mean that they are dangerous or scary. Lindsey Holmes had a similar idea saying,

That means more mental health training for first responders, more policies that help people with

mental illness get the care they need from medical professionals and more workplace acceptance
and initiatives that support individuals dealing with a psychological issue. Meaning the more

people we educate the better they will understand how to treat those with a mental illness and the

correct way to help them with their illness. We need people to be less afraid of disclosing their

mental illness and more content with it. The more that people who suffer from mental illnesses

are willing to speak up about their illness and how it works the more education others will

have and we as a society will gain more insight into what their everyday life is like. The best way

to overcome the negative effects of mental health stigma is to make sure people are more

educated on mental health so that those who have one are less afraid of their mental illness and

that those who dont have a mental illness are more open and willing to help those that do.

Through all of my research I wanted to understand how mental health stigma impacted

those with a mental illness. I quickly discovered that that was a question with a definite answer,

but I didnt want my research to go to waste. So instead I wanted to write an essay about my

discoveries and my final thoughts on everything I had learned. While some may not think this is

an important topic, Id have to disagree. Mental illness cases are growing more and more every

day and stigmas along with it. I feel we as a society need to stop discriminating and start helping

one another. It would help those with a mental illness feel more accepted and those without a

mental illness would be a bit more understanding and knowledgeable.

 Works Cited

Corrigan, Patrick, et al. "Developing a Research Agenda for Understanding the Stigma of

Addictions Part I: Lessons from the Mental Health Stigma Literature." American Journal

on Addictions, vol. 26, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 59-66. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/ajad.12458.

Holmes, Lindsay. Let's Call Mental Health Stigma What It Really Is: Discrimination. The

Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Feb. 2017,

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mental-health-

discrimination_us_57e55d07e4b0e28b2b53a896.

Jackson, Jake. "Patronizing Depression: Epistemic Injustice, Stigmatizing Attitudes, and the

Need for Empathy." Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 48, no. 3, Sept. 2017, pp. 359-376.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/josp.12194.

Llewellyn, Nikki. Ten Years of Progress: Nikki's Time to Change Story. Time To Change,

TimeToChange, 9 Oct. 2017, www.time-to-change.org.uk/blog/ten-years-progress-

nikkis-time-change-story.

How Stigma Interferes With Mental Healthcare: An Expert Interview With Patrick W. Corrigan,

PsyD. Medscape Log In, Medscape, 9 Dec. 2004,

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/494548.

Zhao, Wenfeng, et al. "Attachment Style, Relationship Factors, and Mental Health Stigma

among Adolescents." Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue Canadienne Des

Sciences Du Comportement, vol. 47, no. 4, Oct. 2015, pp. 263-271. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1037/cbs0000018.