Guest post: But they look like you and me!

Jo Mueller investigates how parents could hold the key to tackling mental health stigma

Alien? Or simply struggling? Views about
mental health are formed early.
Photo: nadja robot

When it comes to attitudes to mental health, things are getting worse. Despite the high-profile campaigns, stigma and discrimination against people with mental health problems seem to be on the rise. Part of the reason may be that our campaigns are promoting the wrong message. The way we often address stigma is to promote the idea that mental health problems are illnesses. The rationale is noble. Rather than give the impression that someone is weak or blameworthy, isn’t it surely better to say they are sick?

The danger of this is that the idea of something going wrong with people’s brains can be scary and alienating. Put this together with the ‘1 in 4’ idea - that one in four of us will suffer ‘mental illness’ at some point - and it can add up to a frightening message: there’s a dangerous disease out there that might strike at us any time.

It's Brave but is it Helpful?

Angela Gilchrist

Fighting Stigma or Frightening Stuff?
Photo: Christian Payne

When a celebrity like Stephen Fry can publicly admit that he's recently attempted suicide and others like Catherine Zeta-Jones announce they're checking into a clinic for maintenance of a bipolar disorder, it would be tempting to believe that we've reached a new point in the acceptance of mental illness.

Certainly, people are more open than they have ever been about mental distress. Celebrity accounts fill the tabloids and the internet abounds with stories from those either in the midst of recovery or resigned to a lifetime of psychiatric input. Films have leading characters with bipolar, MP's have discussed their mental health woes, and we’ve made it illegal to discriminate on mental health grounds. These are signs that we're beginning to understand mental ill-health as just another form of distress. Given all this evidence, you could be forgiven for thinking that the stigma of mental illness is a thing of the past. The reality though, sometimes seems very different.

When the Ads Don’t Work

Anne Cooke and Dave Harper 

Is your mind made up about mental illness?
This picture may dispel any doubts.
Photo: Giovanni Cassanese 

It’s a sobering thought that, for many people who use mental health services, other people’s reactions cause more distress than their original problems.   And attitudes may even be getting worse.  A recent report from the Department of Health found that whereas in 1997, 92% of people questioned agreed that ‘we need to adopt a more tolerant attitude towards people with mental illness’, in 2011 only 86% thought that we need to be more tolerant.   Worryingly, young people appeared to be the most prejudiced.

Relatively static attitudes to mental health stand in contrast to the changes there have been in attitudes about ethnicity and sexuality (we currently have a conservative Prime Minister advocating same-sex marriage).  It’s even more surprising given the effort that has gone into anti-stigma campaigns.  For example you may have seen the recent tube posters or TV ads from the government sponsored Time to Change campaign.   So what’s the problem?  Perhaps part of the answer is what campaign ads actually say. Or what they don’t.