Graham Davey's 'Mental Health And Stigma'

In Graham Davey’s article “Mental Health & Stigma”, Graham Davey raises the awareness of mental health problems. He believes that mental health stigma is still a common issue which negatively affects those who are targeted as it promotes discrimination and prejudicial attitude towards the sufferers. Moreover, he points out that the stigma comes from misinformation and actions must be taken efficiency to erase the distance in prejudice towards mental illness. Davey’s reasoning is persuasive because he gives the realistic analysis taken from different researches as well as everyday life examples. By mentioning the source of misinformation, the consequence of mental health stigma, and the solution that have been taken, Davey shows us that the
There are many factors that bring the false and outdates information to the people. According to Davey, “the medical model implies that mental health problems are on par with physical illnesses and may result from medical or physical dysfunction in some way (Davey). Moreover, the term “diagnosis”, which is often used in this medical model, always associates as a label to “the patients” can lead to “the view that people with mental health problems are different and should be treated with caution” (Davey). The is true since as we think about people with mental health problems, we often imagine about them doing some uncontrollable behaviors and we are very wary of being near them. In addition, Davey finds fault with the media in stereotyping the mental health sufferers. The media falsely portraits the behaviors of the characters with mental health problems, often as a threat to the social and to themselves, which has “[reinforced] biased beliefs and stigmatizing attitude towards people with mental health problem” (Davey). The image that we see on media does not fully reflects the true personality of the mental health sufferers. Hence, Davey reasonably proves that the confusing sources such as the medical model and the media result in the mental health
He refers to Moses’s research on 2010 which concludes that “stigma directed at adolescents with mental health problems… [leads] to friendship losses and social rejection” (Davey). It creates the unconfident in adolescents and finally isolates them with their surroundings. Davey mentions Livingston & Boyd’s work which shows that the social effects resulting from mental health stigma include: “exclusion, poor social support, poorer subjective quality of life, and low self-esteem” (Davey). Furthermore, he convinces by referring to Perlick’s study that mental health stigma is an obstacle in “treatment outcomes” as it “hinders efficient and effective recovery from mental health problems”. By linking all the credible studies and researches, Davey states that stigma has negative impacts on the mental health sufferers and also the society; and thus those effects are the “reasons for attempting to eradicate mental health stigma and ensure that social inclusion is facilitated and recovery can be efficiently achieved” (Davey). Therefore, Davey’s consultation and quotation of the expert researches strengthen his claims of the consequence of mental health stigma and the importance of eliminating it from