Mental Health Stigma Essay

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Stigma, as defined by the Oxford English dictionary, is a symbol of degradation associated with a particular person or circumstance. In mental health, stigma refers to the judgemental attitude and prejudices to individuals who have mental illnesses—labelling them as nothing more than the disease. People living with mental illnesses are amongst the most stigmatized groups in the society. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is a state of well being where individuals are able to cope with normal stresses, work productively, and able to contribute to the community. In this paper, the different elements of mental health stigmatization including the history, prevalence, and the Canadian effort of addressing the issue Training programs for nurses were created to ensure that persons who are mentally-ill were properly cared for. Although the program was called “caring for the insane”, proper caring for mentally-ill persons was finally in the nursing curriculum. The advanced nursing degree program was funded by the National Mental Health Act of 1946— the first legislation to provide funds for research and improved community service for persons with mental illness. More funding to support and continue the research in the field of mental health became available in 1949 when the National Institute of Mental Health was established. (Womble, 2015) In 1953, the National League for Nursing recommended the incorporation of psychiatric nursing in all nursing programs to minimize the stigmatization of the mentally- ill persons. Due to these political and social influences, the change in the community became visible and the roles of psychiatric nurses were improved. Numerous steps were taken to enhance the treatment methods to gain improved conditions for persons with mental The campaign is called Elephant In The Room—it is designed to raise funds and awareness towards mental health— displaying a blue elephant to symbolize how individuals care about the wellness of others and letting them feel that it is safe to talk about mental illness, without the fear of being judged or stigmatized. This organization also has other anti-stigma campaigns such as The Hurting Professions: Lawyers in Crisis, Mental health: Start talking to stop stigma, Coming Out: Edmontonians Living with Depression and

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