Stigma & Bigotry

Changing the mental health and psychosocial support system in Germany requires public debate about the ways our society should help and support people in mental crisis and with chronic mental health problems. We believe the driving force behind all help and support should be humanitarianism and respect for inalienable human rights.

When I looked through my mountains of medical records, I saw that the providers who listed my race as black applied diagnoses like major depressive disorder and PTSD. The providers who saw me as white preferred diagnoses of panic disorder and borderline personality disorder. Of course, my experiences are just anecdotal. But if racial bias due to subjective experiences of practitioners can play such a large role in mental health diagnostics, how is this even considered a scientific discipline?

Study reports on the less-examined findings of difficult and painful meditation-related experiences.

Derek Summerfield, consultant psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley National Health Service Foundation Trust, challenges the assumption that Western depression is a universal condition.

Results from two meta-analyses reveal shortcomings with the growth mindset theory as applied in schools.

Over and over I've seen the aftermath of that ritual of receiving and internalizing a lifelong, pathologizing diagnosis. I don't think we can underestimate the uncanny power of receiving such proclamations about our personhood by people sanctioned by our culture to serve as arbiters of truth.

When it comes to psychiatric diagnosis, I can be almost certain that anyone outside of my immediate field of work just won’t ‘get it,’ no matter where they stand on anything else. And not only won’t they get it; they will often actively be one of the unwitting oppressive masses, either through their inaction or worse.

At my job with a NAMI affiliate, I heard daily from people who looked at family members with “mental illness” as non-people, non-human, the “other.” In the office, it was no different. If NAMI had a tagline, it would be “Please be normal like us.”

Without clarity and consensus around what social justice means, psychologists risk perpetuating injustices that undermine their stated mission.

This is how the vicious cycle continues: the more one internalizes stigma, the more she will distance herself from her social surroundings; the more she distances herself, the more she will experience proliferation of symptoms; and the more symptoms are present, the more others will stigmatize and "force" the person into further isolation.

One of psychiatry's most obvious vulnerabilities is the fact that various so-called antidepressant drugs induce homicidal and suicidal feelings and actions in some people, especially late adolescents and young adults. This fact is not in dispute, but psychiatry routinely downplays the risk, and insists that the benefits of these drugs outweigh any risks of actual violence that might exist.

Researchers explore how family interventions for psychosis might be adapted to China’s emerging integrated mental health care landscape.

A new study highlights the role heavy metal music plays in the mental health of adolescents facing adversity.

Researchers explore neoliberal influences on interactions in psychotherapy and question whether the radical potential of psychotherapy can counter prevailing social systems.

A review of mental health anti-stigma campaigns finds psychosocial models are effective in reducing stigma, while biogenetic models often worsen attitudes.

Are White Americans’ poor mental health outcomes caused by Whiteness?

The National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery is calling upon all people of like minds, who care about individuals who need mental health services, to ACT. It is urgent. Please call your representative in the House of Representatives to vigorously oppose HR 2646 on Tuesday, July 5, 2016. And, call your Senator to insist that the Senate reject any amendments or changes to mental health legislation from the House by Friday, July 8, 2016. For more information about this Call to Action, please click here.

In a new report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Dainius Pūras, calls for a move away from the biomedical model and “excessive use of psychotropic medicines.”

Trauma-informed approaches have the potential to promote recovery but must involve survivors and service-users to prevent the experience of retraumatization within psychiatric and mental health services.

Researchers examine the transformation of work, life, and identity in India as a result of Western corporate and psychological culture.

Contemporary empirical research explores new ways to conceptualize and heal racial trauma through anticolonial and sociohistorical lenses.

Interventions calling attention to participants’ hypocrisy proved effective in reducing Islamophobia and collective blame of Muslims for individual acts of violence.

MIA’s Micah Ingle interviews Mary Watkins about reorienting psychology toward liberation and social justice.

The ability of transgender youth to use their chosen name is connected to reduced depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts/behaviors.

A new review finds that dehumanizing language, including self-dehumanization, is connected to anxiety, depression, and disordered eating.