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Stigma

February 2010: Think Beyond the Label

A new media campaign uses humor to encourage employers to avoid labels and to learn the facts about employing people with disabilities.



Monthly Feature February 2009: Archived Training Teleconferences

ADS Center Logo The ADS Center (The Resource Center to Promote Acceptance, Dignity and Social Inclusion Associated with Mental Health ) conducts training teleconferences throughout the year.  Archives of these conferences can be accessed from the ADS Center Web site. 

Recent  topics include "Children's Mental Health Problems and the Need for Social Inclusion" and "Promoting Acceptance and Inclusion for People with Mental Health Problems in the Workplace." 

The ADS Center is a project of the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.


MONTHLY FEATURE DECEMBER 2008: EVERYONE DESERVES TO WORK

"Work is about daily meaning as well as daily bread." -Studs Terkel

Like all workers, people with severe mental illnesses can benefit greatly from the security and self-sufficiency that come with stable and fulfilling employment. In addition to providing a living, work gives people a sense of belonging and community and creates a network of friends and colleagues.

The workforce includes many individuals with psychiatric disabilities whose disabilities may be stigmatized and misunderstood. Despite the contributions of numerous people who have had or who currently have mental illnesses, employers and the public may discourage people who have mental illnesses from fulfilling their career goals.

In fact, due in part to stigma and discrimination, the unemployment rate among people with serious and persistent mental illnesses is 90% -- far higher than the 50% unemployment rate among individuals with physical or sensorial disabilities. In other words, only 10% of individuals with persistent mental illnesses who want to work, and are able, are working.

The employment of people with mental illnesses helps employers fill job openings and contributes to society through the return of paid taxes and Social Security and reduced use of government health and disability benefits.
Employers who have hired individuals with mental illnesses report that their attendance and punctuality exceed the norm, and that their motivation, work quality, and job tenure is as good as or better than that of other employees.1

Source: SAMHSA's Resource Center to Promote Acceptance, Dignity and Social Inclusion Associated with Mental Health (ADS Center): Employment

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MONTHLY FEATURE AUGUST 2008: SUICIDE AND STIGMA

The stigma associated with mental illnesses has lessened some in recent years, but the stigma associated with suicide and and its survivors remains strong. 

References
Cvinar, J.G. (Jan-Mar, 2005). Do suicide survivors suffer social stigma: a review of the literature.  Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. 41(1):14-21.

Howard Sudak, M.D., Karen Maxim, M.S., R.N. & Maryellen Carpenter. (April 2008). Suicide and Stigma: A Review of the Literature and Personal Reflections. Academic Psychiatry, 32:136-142.

Upcoming Suicide Prevention Conferences:

MONTHLY FEATURE JUNE 2008:
BATTLING STIGMA

 No one is immune from depression, not men, not professionals, not the educated. And people dealing with depression are in a special position to combat the stigma associated with mental illnesses, because they understand first hand how it feels. Read about one man's effort to educate others in his profession about depression.

Dan Lukasik, a New York attorney, decided to create a Web site after he struggled with depression.  Lawyers with Depression (www.lawyerswithdepression.com)

 "Attorney's Mission is to Erase the Stigma of Depression" (.pdf; New York Law Journal article about the
Web site)

Related Article:
Medical Expertise Ups Suicide Risk For MDs: Profession's Stigma Of Mental Illness, Doctors' Easy Access To Drugs Contribute To Problem - CBS News




MONTHLY FEATURE AUGUST 2007:
STIGMA AND DEPRESSION PRESENTATION

What is Stigma? slide from presentation


Depression and Stigma:  What Research Tells Us (and Doesn't Tell Us) about the Design of Effective Anti-Stigma Messages. A July 26, 2007 presentation based on research by Jonathan Kanter, Keri Brown and Laura Rusch of the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.



"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. We learn that as kids and only if it were true. Words hurt. Labels hurt. Negative words have negative consequences."

Ok so what exactly is stigma? It turns out there are around 5 or 10 different measures of stigma that have been created by researchers, but if you look at them, most of them focus on a really broad stigma about mental illness in general and are not specific to depression. So in my lab we looked at all these measures, changed some of the items to make them relevant to depression, and put them all together into one huge 100 item measure, and gave it to 387 depressed adults. We wanted to figure out if there were components of stigma of depression that were important to identify and distinguish so we used a technique called factor analysis to do that, and here’s what we found.

We found five distinct factors that were nonetheless related to each other. They are public stigma, stigmatizing experiences, self-stigma, treatment stigma and secrecy. The problem definitely starts with public stigma – negative attitudes about depression held by friends, family members, the general public, the media.

Public stigma and stigmatizing experiences leads to self-stigma, where you start to believe these stereotypes, and treatment stigma, where you don’t seek help for it, and secrecy, where you avoid new relationships, don’t know what to say in job interviews, and in general have this major aspect of your life that you need to hide from every one around you. And that is depressing. In our study, all of these components correlated significantly with depression – public stigma less so, but we see here that the more depressed you are, the more stigmatizing experiences you’ve had, the more self-stigma, the more treatment stigma, and the more secrecy.

So this just highlights how important it is to address stigma – it not only keeps people out of treatment but it participates in a vicious cycle that makes depression worse.

To read more about Kanter's research visit our Combating Stigma - Research page.
View the presentation (11 M PowerPoint file)