The impact and strategies of mental illness stigma
he impact and strategies of mental illness stigma   作业代写
 
Abstract: although more and more people realized that the psychopaths should be treated fairly, the recovery and life of psychiatric patients are still damaged by all kinds of stigma, while the appearance of the new form of stigma –the implicit stigma makes the situation more and more serious, so the strategies against the stigma must be studied and implemented to reduce the impact of stigma.  
Key words: stigma, mental illness, implicit stigma, impact, strategy
 
There are many people bothered by mental illnesses all around the world today, but many of them who could have been cured are reluctant to accept treatment, and those who have already recovered are facing big barriers when they go back to their original lives, the existence of stigma is the main cause of this situation, the stigma makes patients even their families to be treated unfairly and feel themselves inferior. The WHO (2001) pointed that the biggest obstacle of the recovery of the patients with psychological and behavioral disorders was the stigma and the discrimination related. So people who work in the mental illness field and every other one should pay more attention to the problem of mental illness stigma.
 
The impact of mental illness stigma
Link and Phelan (2001) identified the stigma from the perspective of sociology, they argued that the stigma only existed when the label, stereotyping, cognitive distinction,身份丧失和歧视这些要素，在让这些过程得以展现
Loss of identity and discrimination acted at the same time under the power of context in which these elements could emerge. They also believed that the process of stigma depended on the use of society, politics and economic power. The mental illness stigma not only cause the patients avoid treatments and the low compliance of treatment (Rusch, Todd, Bodenhausenc, Weidend, & Corrigan, 2009c), but also continue the negative effects of stigma even when the symptoms of the disease or disorder are under control (Jorm, Christensen, & Griffiths, 2006; Verhaeghe & Bracke, 2011).
 
The survey of Swindle(2000) showed that Although the understanding of the nature of mental disease was increasingly deepening, but most people still held Stereotyped beliefs against the patients with mental disorders (Swindle R, Heller K, 2000). Further studies in The United States, Norway, Greece and Germany confirmed that the mental illness stigma existed widespread with different degrees (Rusch N, Angermeyer M C, Corrigan P W 2005).  Patients with mental diseases affected by the negative impact of stigma inevitably, their social identity, social networks and self-esteem are damaged by the stigma (Chung K F, Wong M C 2004). Many of the patients failed to participate the normal social life, leaving out at the workplace, losing friends even relatives. And this situation inevitably leads to the aggravate condition of patients, many of them may set up a lifestyle with bad habits like smoking or drinking or overeating, these habits easily lead to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular and diabetes which result in death at the early age. So patients with mental diseases always living a shorter life than the other people not only because of suicide or accident caused by psychological problems but also because the bad habits which do harm to physical health.
 
More investigations show that over 60% patients with mental diseases have problems in many aspects of daily life like house renting and finding jobs (Corrigan P W, Kleinlein P. 2005), many patients avoid the effect of stigma by refusing to ask for help from others or giving up treatment. Moreover the mental health workers or the friends and relatives of patients may get the effects of stigma, called courtesy stigma or associative stigma. Phelan (1998,2000) took studies in 156 patients and their family members to find out that 1/3 people hid the situation that their family members were patients with mental diseases, 1/4 people used to be avoided by other people because of the relationship with mental patients (Corrigan P W, Kerr A, Knudsen L. 2005).
 
The implicit stigma
After learning the nature of mental illness, more and more people realized that the patients with mental illness should be treated fairly. So the exclusion and discrimination against the psychiatric patients in public get more and more blame. People are concerned their words and behaviors when facing patients with mental illness to keep peaceful relations, but the thinking that patients with mental illness do not as  normal as other people and mental illness cannot be cured still deep inside the minds of many people, they are not willing to contact mental patients initiatively. Those people who with mental illness are marked with the labels of irritability and danger. This situation makes the prejudice and discrimination against mental patients become more covert and imperceptible, and studies of mental illness stigma also found out that it was difficult to evaluate the actual effect of the intervention of stigma by   explicit measurements（Angermeyer & Matschinger, 2005; Corrigan & Shapiro, 2010). Many scholars and experts pay more and more attention to the implicit stigma of mental illness. Teachman (2006) used the indirect measurement to study the mental illness stigma for the first time, it was also regarded as the beginning of the study of implicit mental illness stigma (Stier & Hinshaw, 2007).
 
Many further studies showed that the implicit stigma commonly existed in the society, but there still lack of specific identification about implicit mental illness stigma (Teachman et al., 2006; Rusch et al. 2009a; 2009b). Although there are not many empirical researches about implicit stigma, many important discoveries about the component and measurement of implicit stigma have been found by researchers. The study of Teachman (2006) showed that the public had stronger negative evaluation about mental illness compared with physiological disease. A series studies of Rusch （2007; 2010a; 2010b）also found out that there were not only implicit negative evaluation against mental patients from the public but also existed spontaneous shame and anger. The research of Peris (2008) found that the public had stronger negative evaluation of mental illness patients than mental health practitioners and the social workers, and people with a background in psychology showed more active in patients with mental illness than those did not. Lincoln, Arens, Berge and Rief (2008) also found that the judgement of accountability and danger and unpredictability about mental illness patients of the college students majored in psychology and medicine were different, the students with medical background showed more negative attitude to patients with mental illness, even kept distance with them and tended to give a serious judgement in diagnosis, this situation is adverse to the treatment and recovery of patients with mental illness. And the treatment of physical diseases may different between a patient with mental illness and a normal patient, it will cause greater harm to the mental illness patients undoubtedly.
 
The strategies on mental illness stigma
The impact of mental illness stigma has drawn much attention today, many organizations and experts study the strategies to reduce the negative effects of it, but there are few specific and effective methods special for the stigma of mental illness, only several attempts have been studied to solve it. The educate, protest and contact are the main pattens of the strategies. Learning more information about mental illness and the patients can eliminate the confusion and scare of the public, the state and education department should make the knowledge and treatment about mental illness popularized through many kinds of channels like media and school curriculum, only in long-term and deeper education can everyone understand the nature of mental illness so as to treat the patients in an equal way. Meanwhile the colleges and organizations related should enhance the education about mental illness on students major in medicine and the workers in this field.
 
But the effects of education method always slower and the behaviors of people cannot be changed in a short time, so much radical methods like protest should be attempted. This method gives people a strong shock in mind that it is wrong to prejudge the mental illness patients by public media. A short-time effect could be seen by this way, but excessive protest could also make people have hostility, even create a negative effect, so this strategy must be used carefully. A research (Watson A C, Corrigan P W. 2005) found that contacting with mental illness patients could change the attitude of people compared with other methods. This method makes people to get a more intuitive impression of mental illness patients and establish a normal relationship with them, this is the most effective and direct way to reduce the stigma of mental illness, but also the most difficult way to be implemented, many people and organizations related should work together to carry out the contact strategy in a careful way. And the effects could reach an ideal degree if integrates the contact with education.
 
Conclusion
Many people suffering from mental illness all around the world, Jack Heath (2013) pointed that ‘so long as stigma, prejudice and stereotypes go unchallenged, people will delay seeking help and find it harder to accept their diagnosis and treatment’. Reducing the negative effect of stigma is the duty of everyone of us, the states and communities must be responsible for the intervention and treatment of mental illness patients to help them living a fulfill life.
 
会对他们的污名和与之相连的歧视

 he impact and strategies of mental illness stigma   作业代写
 
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