Public attitudes, stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511544064.012

12 - Public attitudes, stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness

from Part III - Social factors and the outcome of psychosis

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2009

Graham Thornicroft and

Edited by

Kwame McKenzie and

Graham Thornicroft: Affiliation:
Health Service and Population Research Department, Box 29, Institute of Psychiatry De Crespigny Park, London, UK
Aliya Kassam: Affiliation:
Health Service and Population Research Department, Box 29, Institute of Psychiatry De Crespigny Park, London, UK
Craig Morgan: Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
Kwame McKenzie: Affiliation:
University College London
Paul Fearon: Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin

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Summary

Introduction

Many people with mental illness are subjected to systematic disadvantages in most areas of their lives. Why should this be so? What can we learn from other conditions whose image may have changed over time? Should we fatalistically accept that these processes of exclusion are somehow tribal, deeply rooted and resistant to change? Or is it realistic to see stigma and discrimination as cultural constructions, which we can collectively change if we understand them clearly and commit ourselves to tackle them? These issues are at the core of this chapter.

The starting point: stigma

The unavoidable starting point for this discussion is the idea of stigma. This term (plural, stigmata) was originally used to refer to an indelible dot left on the skin after stinging with a sharp instrument, sometimes used to identify vagabonds or slaves (Cannan, 1895; Hobbes of Malmesbury, 1657). The resulting mark led to the metaphorical use of ‘stigma’ to refer to stained or soiled individuals who were in some way morally diminished (Gilman, 1985). In modern times stigma has come to mean ‘any attribute, trait or disorder that marks an individual as being unacceptably different from the ‘normal’ people with whom he or she routinely interacts, and that elicits some form of community sanction’ (Goffman, 1963; Scambler, 1998).

Stigma and physical conditions

While this chapter is concerned specifically with people who have diagnoses of mental illnesses, the stigma concept has also been used extensively for some particular physical conditions (Mason, 2001).

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Type: Chapter
Information: Society and Psychosis , pp. 179 - 197

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511544064.012 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2008

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