Why Is Mental Illness Still Stigmatized?

Matthew Rippeyoung, M.A.
Psychologist (Candidate Register)

Often times, people will come to a first therapy appointment feeling unsure if they should be there. Either they feel as though their problems are too trifling to “bother” someone else about, or their feelings are too big to be helped. When trying to help people figure out whether therapy can be helpful to them, I focus on the impact their problems are having on their lives in general. Depression, for example, is characterized by having a twoweek period where one feels down most of the day, every day, and can’t shake this feeling, and is usually accompanied by difficulties with sleep, appetite, and finding enjoyment in activities that one usually likes. It can also be accompanied by a great deal of guilt, shame, and feelings of low self-worth, as well as thoughts of suicide. Not all of these symptoms need to be present for someone to be clinically depressed, but when someone is experiencing five of these difficulties simultaneously, professionals tend to diagnose someone with depression. Diagnosis can be helpful in terms of giving a direction to treatment, in addition to helping people find resources on their own that might help them feel better. This would be a clear indication that seeking out a therapist would be a good idea.

According to the Health Canada’s Report on Mental Illness in Canada (2002), depression is an illness that will impact 8% of Canadian adults at some point in their lives, and mental illnesses in general will impact 20% of Canadian adults. 20% translates into 1 out of every 5 of us, which is a significant number when you start counting how many people are in your family, or at your workplace, or in your classroom. Additionally, Health Canada’s report also demonstrated that while 1 out of every 5 people struggle personally with mental health issues, the remaining 4 out of every 5 people will have a friend, family member or colleague who is personally struggling with mental illness.

With these statistics, it can be difficult to understand why the stigma associated with mental illness persists. In part, I wonder if the problem revolves around how we define mental illness. Many people might be willing to say that they have had an upsetting experience with feeling anxious, but there seems to be a very different feeling regarding describing a set of experiences as “mental illness,” or being “mentally ill.” The images that the media frequently conjures up of mental illness often involve extremely complex mental disorders like schizophrenia, where people lose touch with reality and experience hallucinations (sensory experiences that exist only in the mind of the individual) or delusions (firm, fixed beliefs that are not true). In Canada, Health Canada’s research has found that these types of experiences are common for only about 1 % of the population, whereas something much more common like problems relating to anxiety impact 12% of the population directly. All of this is to say that while people may not want to associate themselves with the term “mental illness,” if we use the definition more broadly to include the full spectrum of difficult reactions, people may see themselves as more part of this group than associating themselves with a small percentage of the population with serious psychotic disorders.

While the numbers above refer to people with diagnosed mental illnesses, we’re not including in these numbers people who may, for example, experience only three or four of the symptoms of depression. It would be hard to argue that someone who is feeling a lot of guilt, not sleeping well and feeling sad for a few intense days is not experiencing difficulties. This is why it is important for assessment and treatment to focus on the impact of symptoms, in addition to whether a formal diagnosis can be made. Psychological therapy can take many forms and often helps people to better understand their symptoms and their sense of themselves, helping people to use their own inner resources to take on life’s challenges. Additionally, therapy can help people to think about themselves and their situation differently, which can lead to behavioural change, or vice versa. As such, it stands to reason that if you are struggling with difficult emotions, thoughts or behaviours in yourself or in someone around you, consulting with a therapist can be a great starting point to see how you might wish to handle things differently. Large or small, difficulties do not need to be suffered alone.

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