Ashley Brooks

Dr. Cassel

English 101

4 November 2018

Annotated Bibliography

My topic for my research project is concerned with the stigma surrounding mental health.

When did the social stigma surrounding mental health begin? How did it begin? How has the

history of the stigma been throughout the years, and why did society create customs that has kept

this stigma in place? Another important question for me is how mental health practicing today is

impacted because of the stigma. How does this stigma affect client’s ability to be treated

effectively and properly for their mental illness? I also want to learn how as a society we can

work to get rid of this stigma which is affecting and hurting so many people who need proper

help.

“Impact of Stigma” Wahl, Otto. Telling is risky business: mental health consumers confront

stigma. Rutgers University Press, 1999.

This chapter of the book helps to explain and show how the mental health stigma affects

people who are impacted by it every day. There are many examples of what consumers of mental

health care may feel. They may feel like they are less human, because people will treat them

harshly. They feel discouragement and disappointment in their lives, because they feel like there

is nothing they can do to fix the fact that their illness has caused society to view them as “crazy.”

Most people also think that they can’t speak out against the people who have called them
mentally insane, because if they get upset, it will be used against them as another reason why

they are mentally unstable. People are scared to disclose their illness to other people because of

this abuse, so that causes mental health to be talked about even less thereby increasing the

stigma. This has created an endless cycle of the stigma which makes it that much harder for

mental health consumers because society has made it almost impossible to disprove the stigma

because of its beliefs.

The author’s purpose of writing this chapter was to explain to the public all the ways in

which stigma could affect and hurt people. The audience for this piece was the general public

because he wanted to show how people’s daily actions helped to bring about the stigma and

affect patients of stigma negatively. This was written right at the turn of the century, so mental

health practice had already been around for a while at this point. Even though it had been around,

there was still a high level of stigma and not understanding which needed to be addressed.

People don’t like to talk about mental illness, so he interviewed a ton of people dealing with

mental illness to hear their stories and then share them with the world. I think that is impactful

because people reading can see how much negative impact the stigma has.

The writer of this book is Otto Wahl, who was published under Rutgers University. He

has written other books about mental health in society, and this shows he has a vast knowledge

when it comes to the topic he has written about. We know that the author is credible because he

has been published through a university. When you go to the back of the book there is a list of all

the resources that the author used to write each chapter, verifying all the chapters as more

accurate because a lot of different sources of information was used. Otto Wahl created a great

book to be used for a research project.

 This research question directly answers two of my questions about the mental health

stigma. It talks about how the mental health stigma has been kept in place due to societal thought

which causes people suffering with mental illness not want to talk about it or fight against cruel

statements against, because they think it will only make it worse. This causes the stigma to be

enforced and only made stronger. It also answers how well clients can be treated effectively.

Because people feel the impact of the stigma so heavily, it causes them deep emotional pain,

only slowing down the healing process of the mental health, if not actually making the original

issue worst.

“Strategies and Coping” Wahl, Otto. Telling is risky business: mental health consumers confront

stigma. Rutgers University Press, 1999.

This chapter talks about how coping strategies can be used to help people who are

suffered from their mental health illness and the stigma. The most common strategy people use is

concealment, in that they hide that they have any problems at all, so they don’t feel the direct

impact of the stigma. This is a bad coping strategy however, because then the patient doesn’t

handle the issue to help resolve their mental illness, but then it also only perpetuates the stigma.

Another strategy used was self-education, because if they knew as much as they could about

their mental illness, people would be less susceptible to misconceptions they may hear to feel

bad about themselves. Clinical psychologists recommend self-enhancement efforts as well, and

so for those they would teach their clients cognitive strategies to help them. Another huge

strategy for dealing with stigma was advocacy. Stigma experiences that people had made them

so hurt and angry that they wanted to do something to change it. A great example of this is

NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Talking publicly about mental illness also

helped them to feel less stigmatized and helped them to work through their mental illness. The
major of people who were surveyed said that they believed the best thing that could occur for

mental illness stigma is to have public education informing everyone on mental illness, because

education is the best way to teach the public that the cruel thoughts they have on people with

mental illness is wrong.

The writer’s purpose for this chapter was to talk about ways that people who are

struggling with the mental health stigma and mental health in general can cope. He had people to

take a survey and then used the data to determine what strategies are used the most and work

best. The audience in this piece is the public, because the information can be used by the

mentally ill to learn how to cope, for people in the field to understand how their clients deal with

stigma, and for the public to get a better sense of the stigma. A huge emphasize on the chapter

was public education, so another reason he published this chapter was to argue for the fact that

education on mental health would help to decrease the stigma. This was written in 1999, but even

though it was written 19 years ago, the strategies found in this could be used in today’s world to

help make a greater impact.

The writer of this book is Otto Wahl, who was published under Rutgers University. He

has written other books about mental health in society, and this shows he has a vast knowledge

when it comes to the topic he has written about. We know that the author is credible because he

has been published through a university. When you go to the back of the book there is a list of all

the resources that the author used to write each chapter, verifying all the chapters as more

accurate because a lot of different sources of information was used. Otto Wahl created a great

book to be used for a research project.

This chapter answers my question on how society can work to lessen and stop the stigma

surrounding mental health. Many ideas were brought up in the chapter for ways that individuals
could work through the stigma, but there were also some that the whole community could use.

The two that stuck out to me were the advocacy and the public education, and I completely agree

with everything that the author said. A lot of people who make stigmatizing remarks and

comments do not have a lot of education on mental illness, so they do not understand what they

are talking about. Providing education and informing people on all that we can about mental

illness can make society more informed, which can work to decrease the stigma in society,

because people would understand how real mental health is and how mental health is not at the

fault of the person.

“Mental Illness Stigma” Wahl, Otto. Telling is risky business: mental health consumers confront

stigma. Rutgers University Press, 1999.

This chapter of Otto Wahl’s book explains all the aspects of what mental health stigma is.

It talks about how stigma is personal, psychological, and socially attributed so it can affect all

parts of someone’s life. The labels that come from stigma influence public perceptions and

behavior and lead to devaluation of the person who has been labeled mentally ill. Social

scientists have studied and discussed how the stigma impacts the thinking and behavior of the

stigmatized individual. Often stigmatized individuals may come to share the same beliefs as the

larger population who views them in a negative way. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They

will start to believe that they are flawed and incompetent, and then that will lead them to confirm

what society has set as the expectations for them, only helping to solidify the beliefs of the

stigma. This has been around for centuries, because even in the 13th and 14th centuries in Europe,

people with mental illness were sinful and in league with the devil. In 18th century Europe,

psychiatric patients were held naked in chains, because they thought that mental illness made the

people less human and more in line with animals. 19th century America housed their mentally
sick in inhumane conditions and the public would be allowed to come and see them, as if they

were some animal act for people to get enjoyment out of. In Nazi Germany, the mass

extermination of psychiatric hospital patients because they “were living a life not worthy of life”

is another example of this devastatingly prevalent stigma. In today times, people also hold the

strong conviction that people who are mentally sick are more likely to commit high level crimes

such as murder, and they believe that they are more dangerous than anyone else in society. The

press and social media also present mental illness in a negative way, bringing the stigma into

mass media. The mental illness label leads to discrimination, so people are unable to get the jobs

that they want or live the lives that other people in society can.

Otto Wahl wrote this chapter to give a comprehensive overview to the mental health

stigma. He talked about the effects that the stigma has on the individuals who are affected about

it. He also gave the history behind the mental health stigma and how people have been impacted

negatively by it for centuries. The audience of this piece is the public, so they can be more

informed on mental health stigma and it’s impacts. This education might be a great way to work

to stop the stigma surrounding mental health. It was published from Rutgers University so we

know it comes from a respectable source, but the date when it was published does not matter

because we are talking about the history of mental stigma which would not change due to a time

frame.

The writer of this book is Otto Wahl, who was published under Rutgers

University. He has written other books about mental health in society, and this shows he has a

vast knowledge when it comes to the topic he has written about. We know that the author is

credible because he has been published through a university. When you go to the back of the

book there is a list of all the resources that the author used to write each chapter, verifying all the
chapters as more accurate because a lot of different sources of information was used. Otto Wahl

created a great book to be used for a research project.

The main question that I will answer with the information that I gained from this question

is about the history of the mental stigma. I wanted to see how it has been in society for

generations, so being able to go back as far as the 13th century will really help me to get a full

picture. I will be able to see how stigma has been used against people who have mental illness in

the past, and how mental stigma affects people today. This history will also help to show me how

the social customs of mental health stigma have been created and reinforced throughout the

years.

Corrigan, Patrick and Amy Watson. “Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental

illness.” US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, World Psychiatry

Association, February 2002, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1489832/.

Accessed 29 October 2018.

The main point of the article is that people with serious mental illness are challenged in

two ways, from the illness that the suffer from and then from the stereotypes and prejudice that

they see in everyday social life. This causes them to not have as many opportunities at a good

life as other people, and this can even take away some of their basic rights. The mental health

stigma has two parts, the public stigma and the self-stigma that one will start to get after being

influenced by the public stigma that surrounds them. The stigma can lead to negative thoughts

and prejudice against people who struggle with mental health. This will then lead to

discrimination. Stigmas about mental illness are widely endorsed by the public in western

culture. It is strong enough that it is even seen in well-trained professionals in the mental health

field. A lot of the thoughts that come with the stigma is that we need to be scared of all people
with mental illness, that they are all irresponsible and don’t care about anything, and that we

need to treat them like they are a child. People think that people with mental illness are

responsible for them, whereas with physical illness the patient is not blamed. The stigma can be

seen by people withholding help, avoiding people with mental illness, coercive treatment, and

segregated institutions. Public stigma can be changed through the three categories of protest,

education, or contact. Protesting inaccurate and hostile representations of mental illness is a way

to challenge the stigmas that they represent. It tells people to stop spreading mental illness stigma

and to stop spreading it. Education will give people a better understanding of mental illness, so

they will then understand why the stigma surrounding the mental health is wrong. If the public

has more contact with people who have mental illness, they will also see how the stereotypes

aren’t true in real life. Self-stigma can either cause low self-esteem or a righteous anger which

makes people want to change it.

The author’s main purpose in writing this article was to produce a scholarly article to

inform people on mental health stigma. As they talked about in their article, educating the public

can help to diminish the mental health stigma and discrimination. That is what their goal was. It

is both an academic audience and a public audience that this article was meant for. It was

published through the World Psychiatric Association which will target a more specific audience

people directly involved in mental health, such as people who are in the profession. It was

published in the US library however, so all the public can see it and learn from it as well, which

is why it is also directed to a public audience. The fact that the article was published by such

reputable sources lets us know that the information is accurate.

The authors of the article are Patrick Corrigan and Amy Watson. I know that these

authors are credible because they wrote for the Official Journal of the World Psychiatric
Association, and this was then also published by the US National Library of Medicine. At the

bottom of the article, there are 64 references listed, so I know that they got their information

from a bunch of different resources. All this combined makes me positive that this article is

extremely reliable.

This information will answer my fat questions of the social customs surrounding mental

health stigma and how it can be combated. It discusses all the differences between public stigma

and self-stigma. It explained how much the stigma can affect society and lead to discrimination,

and this discrimination causes a lot of the social customs we see today. It also discusses many

ways that society can work to combat the mental health stigma. We can protest, educate, and

become more in contact with mental illness to fully stop the stigma that surrounds it, and that is

an important answer to my research project.

Imagine there was no stigma to mental health. Talk given by Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, TEDx

Talks, 11 January 2016. Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrbTbB9tTtA.

Accessed 31 October 2018.

The main point of this talk which was given by Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman was to think about

what society would be like if there was no stigma. He talked about how with physical illness

there no stigma is placed against the patient blaming them for it and making them feel less that

human, but with mental illness there is. He also gave a great example of how stigma that

revolves around an illness can be done with. AIDS used to be a disease which was highly

stigmatized, and people dealt with huge discrimination because of it. Through public education

and a much greater understanding of the disease, the stigma surrounding it went down because

people understood that the thoughts behind the stigmas simply was not true. He talks about how
he wants the same thing that happened with the AIDS stigma to happen to the mental health

stigma, because then it will stop affecting people negatively.

The purpose of this Ted Talk was to make the audience, which is the public, think about

what would happen if they changed the mental health stigma. Giving us the example about the

AIDS stigma helped to show us that it could happen, and how much of a positive impact could

come from the stigma going away. The context of the piece is that it was presented in 2016, so it

was recent enough to tell us that the mental health stigma is still a serious issue. Knowing that

the information came from a Ted Talk gives it credibility because they are well known

educational speeches which everyone respects.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman is who gave this speech. He is the professor and chair of

psychiatry at Columbia University and he was the past president of the American Psychiatric

Association, so he is certified to be educating people on mental illness. His past and current job

titles make him credible. He also gave the talk through Ted Talks, which are well known

educational speeches, making him even more credible. All of this combined lets us know that the

information that is being presented is credible and could be used for a research paper.

This answers my question about how society can change the stigma for the better. Giving

an example of how a negative stigma was done away with shows that it can happen. It makes us

ponder how if we focus on this we can get rid of the mental health stigma, which I think needs to

be a crucial goal of society. This will allow people to not suffer so much from their mental

illness, and it will help to make the mental health profession much more impactful.