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New Research Suggests Stigma Around Depression Is Dropping

People with mental health conditions face not only distress and disease, but also stigma: the prejudice and discrimination that get attached to health conditions. Stigma has long been a barrier for people accessing the care and resources they need to recover, and a foe of mental health care advocates. But in some ways, the battle against stigma may be changing: A recent study published in JAMA Network Open found the first evidence of significant decreases in public stigma in the United States toward depression. It’s a promising sign that campaigns against stigma—a concept first identified in the mid–20th century—can work.

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Articles of Interest

A Growing Push to Treat Racism’s Impact on Mental Health

Research has found a link between racism and psychological distress, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression among Black people. “If you are not thinking about societal, structural racism when it comes to Black mental health, you are missing a big part of it,” says Sarah Y. Vinson, an associate professor of psychiatry at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Labels like ‘psycho’ or ‘schizo’ can hurt. We’ve workshopped alternative clinical terms

It is common to hear people use stigmatising, discriminatory and hurtful labels such as “psycho”, “schizo” or “totally bipolar”. Others might minimise conditions by saying they too are “a bit OCD” because they value structure and organisation. This kind of everyday use of pseudo-clinical terms can be upsetting for young people who are struggling with these conditions. Worse still, it can stop them seeking care. Clinical terms can have the same effect. For our recent research, we worked with young patients, carers and clinicians to develop new mental health vocabulary that carries less stigma, but remains accurate.

Let's Talk about Stigma Reduction

Stigma reduction refers to the elimination of prejudice and discrimination against people with mental health and substance use disorders. When a disorder is stigmatized, people with that disorder are stigmatized. There is a misconception that these disorders only happen to people with “flawed character” or moral failure of some kind. In reality, these disorders can happen to anyone.

Psychiatric Disorders Still Carry a Stigma

Why do so many of us continue to hold the view, maybe not consciously but certainly unconsciously, that to see a psychiatrist or a psychoanalyst is a sign that the patient has some kind of severe disturbance to be ashamed of? This is so, despite the fact that President Abraham Lincoln and many, many creative people have suffered from depressions.

Structural stigma against mental illness is ‘baked in’ to our health system, and that affects care

Structural stigma refers to inequities that are manifested through rules, policies and procedures within organizations and society at large. Structural stigma is reflected through systems that treat people with mental illness and addiction as less treatable and less deserving of care. It is further manifested through cycles of blame, shame and mistrust for individuals who seek help for their mental illness or addiction.

The Deadly Collision of Racism and Mental Illness

Given this pattern, talking openly about the role that mental illness may play in racially motivated violence seems overdue and necessary. But there are reasons conversations on this subject are also dangerous and fraught. Some people may fear that having such discussions will reinforce negative stereotypes, in particular by playing into the widespread perception that the mentally ill are violent and dangerous. In reality, people who experience mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than to carry it out, notes Carlos Cuevas, a clinical psychologist and professor at Northeastern University who studies hate crimes.

The Many Forms of Mental Illness Discrimination

Discrimination against people with mental illness is widespread. It can be highly detrimental to reaching and staying in recovery. At times, as sad as it may be, the best way for us to manage discrimination is to know it exists, be prepared for it and know how to safeguard our rights.

The Stigma Around Mental Illness is its Own Kind of Madness

Throughout history and across cultures, many characteristics have been stigmatized, including physical deformity or disability, diseases like leprosy (now known as Hansen's disease), minority status with respect to race or religion, any sexual orientation other than heterosexual, being adopted, or having a mental illness.

‘Snowflake millennial’ label is inaccurate and reverses progress to destigmatise mental health

For today’s millennials, who came of age around the early 2000s, the charge of “snowflake” has been attached to criticise their perceived sensitivity. The British Army even used the name recently to address young people in a recruitment campaign. One of the soldiers featured in the campaign has received hundreds of social media messages mocking his association with the snowflake poster. Despite this reaction from some people, the advert’s intention was to invert the label’s stigma and highlight the value of compassion in millennials.