The Stigma Of Disease And Disability

The two main sections of the book comprise chapters on 10 specific illnesses and conditions and chapters relating to broader issues (stigma and family, overcoming stigma, stigma across cultures and future directions). The book concludes with observations on what has not worked in overcoming stigma as well as possible future directions. (Psychology)

Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.

Rehabilitation psychologists have long argued that situational constraints (e.g., missing ramps, lack of Braille signage, nondisabled peoples' attitudes) create greater social barriers and behavioral restrictions for people with disabilities (PWDs) than do the disabilities themselves. In other words, as social psychologist Kurt Lewin argued, situational factors, including the perceptions and actions of other people, often have greater impact on the experience of disability than do the personal qualities of PWDs themselves. Thus, the experience of disability is shaped by a variety of psychosocial forces and factors, some of which enhance while others hinder daily living. For adequate understanding and to plan constructive interventions, psychological science must attend to how the disabled person and the situation interact with one another. Understanding the Experience of Disability: Perspectives from Social and Rehabilitation Psychology is an edited book containing chapters written by social and rehabilitation psychologists who study how social psychological theory can inform our understanding of the experience of disability and rehabilitation. Chapters are arranged topically into four sections: Established areas of inquiry (e.g., stigma, social biases, stereotyping), mainstream topics (e.g., women, culture and race, aging), emerging issues (e.g., implicit attitudes, family and parenting issues, positive psychology), and issues of injustice, advocacy, and social policy (e.g., perceived injustice, disability advocacy, policy implications). Besides informing advanced undergraduate and graduate students and professional (researchers, practitioners) audiences, the book will help families and caregivers of PWDs, policy makers, and PWDs themselves, understand the social psychological processes linked to disability.

The human suffering associated with mental illness is something that more than one in five Canadians face at some point in their life.

Stigma leads to poorer health. In 'The Oxford Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health', leading scholars identify stigma mechanisms that operate at multiple levels to erode the health of stigmatized individuals and, collectively, produce health disparities. This book provides unique insights concerning the link between stigma and health across various types of stigma and groups.

This book examines how intellectual disability is affected by stigma and how this stigma has developed. Around two per cent of the world's population have an intellectual disability but their low visibility in many places bears witness to their continuing exclusion from society. This prejudice has an impact on the family of those with an intellectual disability as well as the individual themselves and affects the well-being and life chances of all those involved. This book provides a framework for tackling intellectual disability stigma in institutional processes, media representations and other, less overt, settings. It also highlights the anti-stigma interventions which are already in place and the central role that self-advocacy must play.

Despite efforts to redress the prejudice and discrimination faced by people with mental illness, a pervasive stigma remains. Many well-meant programs have attempted to counter stigma with affirming attitudes of recovery and self-determination. Yet the results of these efforts have been mixed. In The Stigma Effect, psychologist Patrick W. Corrigan examines the unintended consequences of mental health campaigns and proposes new policies in their place. Corrigan analyzes the agendas of government agencies, mental health care providers, and social service agencies that work with people with mental illness, dissecting how their best intentions can misfire. For example, a campaign to change the language around mental illness by replacing supposedly stigmatizing words with empowering ones has made little difference in how people with mental health conditions are viewed. Educational programs that frame mental illness as a brain disorder have made the general public less likely to blame people for their illnesses, but also skeptical that such conditions can be cured. Ultimately, Corrigan argues that effective strategies require leadership by those with lived experience, as their recovery stories replace ideas of incompetence and dangerousness with ones of hope and empowerment. As an experienced clinical researcher, as an advocate, and as a person who has struggled with such prejudices, Corrigan challenges readers to carefully examine anti-stigma programs and reckon with their true effects.

The author of The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life analyzes a person’s feelings about himself and his relationship to people society calls “normal.” Stigma is an illuminating excursion into the situation of persons who are unable to conform to standards that society calls normal. Disqualified from full social acceptance, they are stigmatized individuals. Physically deformed people, ex-mental patients, drug addicts, prostitutes, or those ostracized for other reasons must constantly strive to adjust to their precarious social identities. Their image of themselves must daily confront, and be affronted by, the image others reflect back to them. Drawing extensively on autobiographies and case studies, sociologist Erving Goffman analyzes the stigmatized person’s feelings about himself and his relationship to “normals” He explores the variety of strategies stigmatized individuals employ to deal with the rejection of others, and the complex sorts of information about themselves they project. In Stigma, the interplay of alternatives the stigmatized individual must face every day is brilliantly examined by one of America’s leading social analysts. “This short book established the conceptual understanding of stigma that continues to buttress contemporary sociological thinking.” —Sociological Review