A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
Last week I reviewed White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. There were some important concepts that she alluded to but didn’t clearly explain, so I decided to do a post, from a social constructionist viewpoint, about how stereotypes and prejudice develop, and why the difference between implicit and explicit beliefs is important. Our societies create categories… Continue reading Racism, Prejudice, and Implicit/Explicit Beliefs
One of the most common and damaging stereotypes about mental illness is that mentally ill people are chronically dangerous and violence-prone (Corrigan and Watson, 2002). This stereotype is especially strongly linked to people with psychosis. Like many stereotypes, it's not true in the vast majority of cases, but the general public may not realize that.… Continue reading Psychotic Does Not Mean Violent
My news source of choice is the CBC, Canada's public broadcaster. Usually they're pretty good, but sometimes they slip up. This was the case with an article published on the CBC website on March 18 about a Russian woman, Margarita Gracheva, whose hands had been cut off by her "psychotic husband." The "psychotic" adjective was… Continue reading Stigma in the News: A “Psychotic” Abuser
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is psychological construct. In psychology, constructs are ways to describe patterns of behaviour or experiences so that they can be explored, investigated, and discussed. It's a way of putting a name to things that don't exist in a… Continue reading What Is… a Psychological Construct
Recently, I was looking on Debate.org for some Holocaust denier-related willful ignorance, and I figured why not see what the crazies of the non-psychiatric variety had to say about us crazies of the mentally ill variety. Debate.org seems to attract a lot of willfully ignorant blowhards, so this certainly isn't reflective of broader public opinion.… Continue reading Willful Ignorance and Mental Illness Stigma
Recently, I came across a post that was a myths vs. facts type deal on mental illness stigma. One of the myths identified was that people with mental illness are disabled. The blogger's response was that, on some days, mental illness could make it harder to work for some people, but there are also people… Continue reading Is It Helpful to Sanitize Mental Illness?
An open letter to the Hon. Judy Darcy, British Columbia Minister of Mental Health and Addictions re. B.C.'s Health Professions Act I'm writing to express my dismay that it appears that the Government of British Columbia does not intend to take advantage of the modernization of the Health Professions Act to remove section 32(3), which… Continue reading Stigma Enshrined in Law: An Open Letter to Government
Public stigma, involving prejudice and discrimination from outsiders that's directed at us, is damaging enough as it is. But sometimes that stigma gets internalized into self-stigma, an unpleasant gift that keeps on giving. How self-stigma develops Researchers Patrick Corrigan (my academic crush) and Amy Watson described three broad types of reactions by people who are… Continue reading How Self-Stigma Happens in Mental Illness
I'm pretty active on Pinterest, and sometimes I'll create new pins related to older blog posts. Recently, I created a pin asking whether people in mental health crisis should be handcuffed, and linked to a post I'd done on that topic and the stigma inherent in it. Once in a blue moon I'll get a… Continue reading Handcuffs to Protect Police from the Mentally Ill? That’s Stigma
Happy Canada Day! On our nation's birthday**, I thought it would be fun to look at a few stereotypes about Canadians. Where we live We live in igloos It takes skill to build an igloo, especially if you don't want the roof to collapse. It also takes snow, which we don't have year-round. Inuit people… Continue reading Happy Canada Day! (And Some Stereotype-Busting)