Mental Illness Sociology

Mental illness is a difficult enough ailment without the inaccurate, prejudiced assumptions that accompanies with the diagnosis. The stigmatic attitudes that are inflicted upon these people affected with this illness are unfair and fictitious. These attitudes contribute to the self exclusion from social interactions, reluctance to seek help and discrimination. If a person isn’t unfortunate enough to be inflicted by a mental illness it is highly like that they will just accept the information from what is told by the media. Unfortunately, when a mental illness issue is on the news it is usually concerning a violent incident. Representation of mental illness in the media therefore plays an import role in determining societies understanding and

As stated previously stigma can affect many aspects of people’s lives, the impact on a sufferer’s personal life can be detrimental to their mental well-being, relationships and disruption of work life. Unfortunately, stigma doesn’t just affect sufferers but also branches out impacting their loved ones. This discrimination can lead to further psychiatric troubles such as depression. This tribulation can often act as a barrier to sufferers wanting to seek early treatment due to their shame they feel being associated with mental illness. Stigma also affects the sufferers in a way to convince them to disengage from services or stop taking medication, all of which can cause relapse and hinder their

According to Beyond Blue (2015) it is estimated that untreated mental health conditions cost Australian workplaces approximately $11 billion per year, with the majority of these costs related to absenteeism and compensation claims. A significant proportion of the cost of a mental illness stems not from the conditions themselves, but from the stigma associated with the conditions. Gelb and Corrigan (2008) suggest that the overall cost of stigma includes lost employee productivity, higher taxes, higher insurance premiums and expenses, legal costs relating to cases of discrimination and depression and anxiety that may be attributable to workplace environments, higher treatment costs due to delays in seeking help, and lower rates of consumption due to under unemployment. These costs demonstrate the importance of reducing stigma and discrimination, not only to improve the experiences and quality of life for those people inflicted with mental illness and their family and friends, but also to benefit the