Essay On Mental Health Stigma

Stigma around mental health in the modern world is no longer forcing people with mental illnesses into asylums and subjecting them to horrible torture such as electroshock therapy for being deemed too dangerous or scary to function in the outside world, but instead is deeply ingrained in everyone, regardless of mental health status. One in four Americans, thirteen percent of ages 8-15, and twenty percent of ages 13-18 experience some form of mental illness, and there are many more who do not have a diagnosis that may still experience symptoms of a mental illness (“Mental Health By The Numbers”). Despite the high number of people with one or more mental illnesses, stigma undermines opportunities for getting help, and can even scare a person
Studies have shown a correlation between mental health stigma and a lower amount of treatment centers or resources for mental health, and even lead to discriminatory practices within established care. Stigma is expressed in a multitude of ways, such as cultural norms, social media, and a lack of empathy for neurodivergents. All of these contribute to stereotypes and myths about mental illness. Stigma can even be internalized by a person with mental illnesses, which is known as self-stigma, meaning that the self image has been so negatively impacted by stigma that a person may believe that they are unworthy of getting treatment, or deny that there is a problem. Stigma has even established itself as structural stigma, which is part of policies governing social and institutional practices. Structural stigma involves the release of mental health history in a criminal trial, lack of funding for mental health research, and even contributes to the price of mental health treatment. That stigma in turn will create more stigma, as a person who has a mental illness may be convicted, therefore feeding into the idea that people with mental illnesses are