It’s good to talk… yes?
Stigma is getting a lot of press recently. Celebrities, sportspeople and even the Royals have been busy raising awareness about mental health problems. The received wisdom is that as people understand more about mental illness, they are more likely to seek help from services and to disclose to family and friends.
Anti-stigma campaigns have been found to reduce personal stigma (see David Steele’s Mental Elf Blog for more on self-stigma). Short-term attitudes may also improve in the public (Suzanne Dash talks about this in her Mental Elf blog) but what does that actually mean? Is there any evidence to suggest that increased awareness changes behaviour?
It seems it hasn’t made that much difference.
At least there’s an effort to change things in the UK. As far as I know there are no such efforts in the US.
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There is a A LOT of talk by these kinds of high-profile bods but unfortunately no actual positive action. When they discuss mental health ‘issues’ (tearfulness, apathy, failure) they mean non-pathological anxiety, low mood and distress at things going wrong, grief even. Everything is kind of light and has a touchy-feely aspect about it. But seldom do these people make mention of life changing mental illnesses like Bipolar disorder, schizo-affective disorder, autism or sz.
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Kind of like how the few psychiatric centers built to compensate for deinstitutionalization tended to cater to the worried well.
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