Volume 4 Issue 8 Aug 2014
STIGMA STINGS!!
Friends…Mental health professional have always faced the obstacle of stigma in catering services to patients with psychiatric problems. Stigma is defined as a sign of disgrace or discredit, which sets a person apart from others. The stigma of mental illness remains a powerful negative attribute for the patient and family which eventually leads to adverse events like embarrassment and shame of having such illness and secrecy to avoid it’s disclosure. Even medical health professionals are no immune in this regard, and hide psychiatric illness in themselves or a family member. So, unlike physical illness, wherein social resources are mobilized, people with mental disorders are removed from potential supports. This social isolation results in poorer outcomes in these patients and increased burn- out in the caregivers.
Why does the stigma arise? Historically, patients with ‘abnormal’ behaviour have been discriminated by getting punished, isolated into ‘asylum’/ ‘mental hospital’. More or less the same ideology is being carried even today in the era of de-institutionalization. It has been seen that media plays a very important role in portraying the psychiatric patient and psychiatrist mostly either as a ‘substance of humour’ or on the other end, violent, unmanageable and harmful. Such available sources give perception of psychiatric illness as ‘Self-inflicted’, ‘Incurable’, ‘chronic’ and ‘needing drugs and shocks’ to stay well!
Overcoming stigma is definitely possible largely through education of not only community but also of various medical health professionals to overcome their prejudices. Media and legal system also should take part in this attitudinal shift. Through collaborative approach of the government, politicians, film personalities and media, our society have seen change in attitudes towards medical illnesses like leprosy, tuberculosis, and HIV/ AIDS to significant extent. Let’s join our hands and minds to combat this ‘Psychophobia’ in us and others…
Assistant Professor, MGMIHS, Navi Mumbai
