1. Social Stigma and Mental Illness

2. Learning Goals Examine some of the common myths about mental illness
Understand the process of stigmatization and its impacts on mental illness
Begin working towards a rethinking of mental illness

3. Stigmatization and its Impacts

4. Youtube Clip: Stigma of Mental Illness
Stigmatization
Definition:
Is a process of assigning negative characteristics/ identity to a person/group
This causes the person/group to feel unaccepted, devalued and isolated from larger society
There is a huge stigma in Western society around being mentally ill
These individuals characterized as “crazy”, “nuts”, etc
Youtube Clip: Stigma of Mental Illness

5. Effects of Stigmatization
Loss of personal identity
Rosenhan experiment
Barrier to treatment
Decreased employment
Becomes a family’s “dirty laundry”

6. The Reality of Mental Illness
1/5 Canadians will experience mental illness in their lifetime and 4/5 will know someone who has a mental illness
That means ALL of us are affected by it

7. Rethinking Mental Illness
The bottom-line:
We need to STOP thinking of people with mental illness as crazy psychopaths who are dangerous/should be avoided
After all, here are some examples of people you may know suffering from mental illness…

8. Bipolar Disorder Catherine Zeta Jones Mel Gibson Sir Isaac Newton
Beethoven
Winston Churchill
Mike Tyson

9. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Harrison Ford
Cameron Diaz
Leonardo DiCarpio

10. Bulimia
Princess Diana
Elton John
Paula Abdul

11. Paranoid Schizophrenia
John Nash
Nobel Prize Winner for Economic Sciences 1994

12. Post-Partum Depression
Brook Shields

13. Depression
Drew Barrymore
Abraham Lincoln
Clara Hughes

14. Mental Health Campaign