Monday, January 1, 2018

Answer #2 for WHY IS THERE SUCH A NEGATIVE STIGMA ASSOCIATED WITH MENTAL ILLNESS?

Asked on Quora This is portions of David Smith's, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner in private practice, answer. "Stigma is defied as: "a set of negative and often unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something. In this case it is mental illness. Stigma is driven by fear, some clinicians within the psychiatric community think. It is simply fear, it is fear of the unknown, which is often the most intense fear among us." "Stigma related to the mentally ill might be driven by perceptions of them as individuals being less than or of a lesser quality in their abilities. Often they are not less than, are of lesser quality than anyone else. They are just different. If people would just stop and think about the life experience of the mentally ill, it might open their minds to see that they are human beings like the rest of us. The problem is they exist in a judgmental society and as long as judgmental attitudes, so will stigma. The million dollar question is why do some people think they are better than someone else? This might sound Polliannaish but the world would be a better place if we learn to focus on improving in the destructive mode that comes from being judgmental."

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