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This month's article was a very interesting read about a topic that is quite a prevalent issue affecting our population, now more than ever. With mental health and the stigma that surrounds it, leading to many negative assumptions being made towards the affected individuals, it makes seeking help more difficult than it necessarily should be. Individuals affected with mental health disorders face many difficulties in life, whether that be the affects that the disorder takes on them mentally and physically, or the fear of asking for help with their disease; mental health is one facet of present day life, that needs to be addressed with greater acceptance and accessibility. This article suggests that the primary reasons for people suffering from mental health disorders to not access help is the stigma and discrimination. This negative stigma and discrimination causes for the public to look at the affected individuals differently because of a disorder that they have no control over. This disorder may affect the person in some manners, however a person's disorder does not define their life, and stigma leads to the individuals to become more emotionally hurt, as they are being categorized due to their disorder and not their personality. Destroying the stigma around mental health will lead to great breakthroughs and allow for individuals affected with mental health not to feel ashamed to seek the extra help they deserve. With organizations, such as Time for Change, pushing to make accessing mental health help more acceptable and helping eliminate the discrimination that individuals experience, the handling of mental health will improve. With this in mind, training of medical personnel needs to be re-evaluated for dealing with mental health patients as negative experiences will continue to cause for patients to avoid seeking help (as stated in the article).
Keeping an open mind, towards any and all individuals will ensure stigmas and discrimination is avoided, and will allow for everyone to live their lives in a manner that best suits themselves.
Reference
Henderson, C., Evans-Lacko, S., & Thornicroft, G. (2013, May). Mental illness stigma, help seeking, and public health programs. Retrieved March 31, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3698814/