How identifying mental illness can reduce stigma
COVID-19 has harmed our mental health, gaining a lot of public attention, but the dangerous shadow of mental illness - stigma - can be more devastating than the illness itself.
Four decades of public education about mental health have failed to eradicate stigma and have worsened. Only recent changes in the way we talk about mental health are starting to have a positive impact.
Stigma has always been important to me because I think it's one of the things that prevents me from helping myself,- said Annan Austin, a researcher, and lecturer at the University of British Columbia. I had PTSD after a car accident. No one wanted to talk about how I was struggling psychologically. People just said "but you're fine" because I was blue all over.
It was one of the worst and most isolating experiences. I felt that if they knew about my depression and anxiety, I would definitely not be a good candidate to make a difference in the world as a world leader. I want to do it.
Currently Chief Executive Officer of Research Canada B.C. As the founder of the Mental Health Services Research Institute and the Substance Use and Adaptation Clinic, Austin is a prominent leader who is pushing to change the way we talk about mental health.
His adaptive clinic is the first and only clinic in Canada to offer free consultations to B.C. to better understand why residents may have mental health problems and how to maintain their mental health.
What is stigma?
Austin says that stigma is difficult to define and can often be a single entity.
There is institutional abuse. If you're dealing with mental illness, you're at the bottom of the list for an organ transplant,- she said. There are many states in the US where you can't get a job if you have a mental health problem.
There is stigma at a community level where people with mental health conditions are often marginalized. For example, a 2008 Canadian population survey found that people with mental health conditions are highly stigmatized by:
42 percent will no longer be close to a friend diagnosed with mental illness;
55 percent will not marry someone with mental illness;
25 percent were afraid to be around others with mental illness; and
50 percent will not tell friends or coworkers that a family member suffers from mental illness.
There are derogatory things on different levels. When people internalize this message - You're not good enough, or 'You'll never make it, - it's the most damaging thing for people living with mental disorders,- said Austin.
Four decades wrong
According to Joel Braslow, professor of psychiatry and history at the University of California, Los Angeles, since the 1960s and 1970s psychiatrists have argued that mental health conditions are as real as any other illness. Public education campaigns have emphasized the biological aspects of mental health conditions—like "other illnesses"—and called them "brain disorders," aiming to reduce stigma through a biological understanding of illness.
There was an observation (of the campaign) and that wasn't the case,- Austin said. As society gains a more biological understanding of mental health conditions, the stigma worsens. Biological characteristics are associated with less blame, but social distance creates a feeling of being shunned and unpredictable and dangerous, leading to an us vs. them mentality that defines people with mental health conditions as different from disorders. Mental health conditions are more chronic and serious, and people living with them are less likely to recover.
At the same time, talking about mental health conditions in the context of psychological or social stress has been shown to normalize symptoms and create a healthier understanding of mental health problems in society.
What causes mental health conditions?
According to Austin and Braslow, the real causes of mental health conditions are not as simple as biological traits. According to Braslow, mental health problems actually arise from a complex dance between our biology and our social, psychological, spiritual, cultural, and historical forces. He says that to understand mental health conditions, we need to consider the complex interactions between all these factors.
Austin established the Adaptation Clinic to address the issue of domestic abuse. Research shows that when genetic counselors personalize and explain real, complex styles that lead to mental health conditions and learn how to reduce or manage these risk factors, empowerment and internalized stigma are reduced in participants with mental health conditions.
It teaches people that everyone has some degree of genetic vulnerability – that no one is immune. It's very common in the population and there's so much genetic variation, we all have some, Austin said. That can be a profound thing for people with mental disorders right away because often they think, I must be biologically disabled or different in some way, so I really am not.
Empowerment gives people a greater sense of control over their lives. Psychiatric genetic counseling, for which we have some evidence. I'd like to see more people get that.
Tell your story to reduce the stigma
Another new evidence-based strategy is “mind-based travel” – sharing the diverse, complex, and human stories of people's mental health journeys. So instead of dividing us into mentally ill and healthy, we can all relate to this experience and see that mental health issues are part of being human.
I started talking about my story when no one really did,- says Victoria Maxwell, an award-winning playwright and mental health educator who teaches workshops and performs plays that share her life story with bipolar disorder. Now, there are hundreds, thousands of people who tell their stories. It is useful to have different stories so that people can know that there are different experiences with different types of mental illness.
His keynote, Just Crazy Talk, was named one of the top anti-stigma events in the country by the Mental Health Commission of Canada.
They heard I was going mental. I ran down the street naked. The police told me to run away. I was hospitalized four, or five times. I took medicine. "I've been around for 20 years,-he said.
This strategy is a snowball game with the campaign "Let's Talk" Bell. A survey of Canadians found that 83 percent said attitudes toward mental health conditions have improved since the campaign began 10 years ago.
"When I see horror, I see people's myths. So I just use them as an opportunity to explain my experience," he said.
A new opportunity
The silver lining of COVID-19 is that mental health is no longer visible. We cannot ignore the fact that many of us are struggling today. Whether we experience it ourselves or know someone close to us, we all learn that there is no health without mental health.
It's an opportunity to see how complex storms—biological threats, political oppression, social inequality, spiritual reckoning, and historical trauma—come together to create mental health symptoms.
There has never been an easier time to talk about mental health than during this pandemic because no one is a stranger to it.
It is time for us to overcome stigma.
If you have any doubts,Please let me know