Stigma - Fighting Inaccurate and Hurtful Representations of Mental Illness

Stigma is best defined as prejudice and discrimination. A stigma associated with mental illness means that some people in the community feel prejudiced about people with mental illness. Usually the stigma is based on ignorance, when people have no real knowledge about mental illness and recovery. Discrimination, based on ignorance and prejudice, may lead to people with mental illness being denied some of the same basic rights that everybody in our society has including getting jobs, finding housing, and being included in the community in other ways.

Sometimes, people who have a mental illness can have self-stigma that can get in the way of recovery. Self-stigma can also be seen as internalizing or believing stigma that you may experience from other people. Having self-stigma might include feeling worthless, feeling ashamed, believing oneself to be incapable, or blaming yourself for having a mental illness.

Learning about stigma, self-stigma and ways to change stigma may be helpful to you in your own recovery. Let your mental health worker know if you would like to add learning about stigma to your recovery plan.

See Stigma: within and without for more information about how to transform attitudes and beliefs and ways to reduce and eliminate stigma.