Does Contact Cure Mental Illness Stigma…?
West, K., Hewstone, M., & Holmes, E. (2010). Rethinking ‘Mental Health Stigma’ The European Journal of Public Health, 20 (2), 131-132 DOI: 10.1093/eurpub/ckq015
Does contact cure mental illness stigma? I would say, of itself, no. The best way that I can think of to exemplify that point is that many mental health professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, et al.) hold the most extraordinarily negative views toward their mentally unwell clients. When, as here in this brief viewpoint, West et al. (2010, p.131) argue that ‘contact…reduc[es] intergroup prejudice’, the contradiction comes only a few lines later, when West et al. (2010, p.132) bemoan the lack of specificity in research on mental illness stigma. How can we argue for something for which we do not even know the answer? Beats me.
Through my own eyes, I have seen how people who should know better (lawyers, doctors, human rights advocates, et al.), can somehow still display the most amazingly negative behaviours and attitudes about mental illness and against people who are mentally unwell. For example, there is a training workshop run here in Sydney called ‘Demystifying Mental Illness’. This workshop is hugely popular amongst health, community, and legal professionals and yet, it preaches nothing but hate, contempt and fear of people who are mentally unwell. It contains one section called ‘How to Spot a Mental Illness’, the elements therein being…
- Constant repetition of the same expression
- Agitation
- Rocking or repetitive movements
- Appearing to have difficulty concentrating
- May appear to be hearing someone other than you
- Paranoia
- A feeling that something is not quite right here
- All reasonable attempts at communication lead nowhere
- Inability to own responsibility for own behaviour
- Emotional lability
- Extremely withdrawn
An obsessive amount of time in this training workshop is dedicated to teaching participants how to avoid, dread or otherwise loathe clients who have or who might be considered to have a diagnosis of ‘borderline personality disorder’. It’s scary stuff, imparting a false siege mentality that has no semblance to reality. When West et al. (2010, p.132) plead for more focused research on mental health stigma, I would respond by suggesting that we need to site and unpack what the fuck is going on in the heads of those people who stigmatise. Unless you pick out and get past all that shite, then increased contact will only make the problem worse…
There are so many sites that talk of stigma. And until you are personally affected you don’t care. My brother is bipolar, employed 12 years on a mental health unit, before being dis charged. In her infinite wisdom, the administrator says he is too dangerous for treatment. He decided to make a complaint to a state a advocacy group. As it turns out, he discovered it to be a waste of time. With this label the stigma has begun. I can’t tell you the damage it has caused, but there are plenty of geniuses out there with sites informing of the dangers. My brother sought help, which only advocated more stigma. He was doing so well, but could not get passed the effects of stigma. 2 months ago I went to his place to see him. He was home alright, I found him lying upstairs with half his head missing from a shot gun blast. Be it as it may, from where I sit, it will never go away and advocacy groups are as useful as tits on a tomcat. But we have these sites that say all these wonderful things, about wanting to help. What exactly does that mean? Easy to say, and so socially accepted, this word help. Unfortunately there are very few professionals actually taking action to undo what stigma does. I certainly understand why labeled people become isolated by the shame of feeling less than. I write this due to the anger over my loss. I’m not interested in any type of response, simply because it will only be more words. How frustrating it must be to those who sincerely try to repair what their own discipline helps perpetuate. To you in this position I applaud and respect you.
I am genuinely sorry for your loss. Twenty-eight years ago almost to the day, I lost my dear brother Shaun to suicide. Shaun had been shockingly abused as a child, including being tortured in a Catholic orphanage, abuse that left him deeply traumatised and desperately in need of help. Alas, despite so many health and welfare professionals being fully aware of his situation and the likelihood of his demise, across the 26 years of his life, not one ever did anything to ‘help’. They merely stood back, as health and welfare professionals so often do, and in utterly corrosive terms pontificated on the ‘hopelessness’ of the situation. To ‘help’ is to care and to care means to get in there and do what needs to be done with a sense of duty and the utmost respect…