Health Translations Victoria has produced a guide to reducing stigma in several languages. There are many forms of stigma in society, some are based on negative attitudes or beliefs, others are due to a lack of understanding or misinformation. Stigma is due to misunderstanding as well as to prejudice.
Stigma is due to misunderstanding as well as to prejudice.
Stigma can lead to a lack of support or empathy for people with a mental illness, leaving people embarrassed, misunderstood, and marginalised. Stigma can cause more than hurt feelings. It can result in symptoms being ignored, lead to poor recovery and a lower quality of life due to isolation.
People living with mental illness are often unfairly and inaccurately labelled as ‘scary’, ‘comical’ or ‘incompetent’. If you’re living with a mental illness, stigma is one more stress you don’t need. In fact, some people say that the effects of stigma and prejudice can be as distressing as the symptoms of their illness.
The World Health Organisation defines stigma as: A major cause of discrimination and exclusion: it affects people‘s self-esteem, helps disrupt their family relationships and limits their ability to socialize and obtain housing and jobs.
It hampers the prevention of mental health disorders, the promotion of mental well-being and the provision of effective treatment and care. It also contributes to the abuse of human rights.
Reducing stigma
This book is about ways to fix disability stigma. To help fix disability stigma you can ask for help, share your story to help people understand disability and stop stigma –for example, at community events, and speak out when you hear stories about disability that are not true. Do not label people by their disability.
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