Mental Illness Essay

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Mental illness is very common and affects thousands of people in the UK and around the world. Research shows that every year 1 in 4 British adults experience at least one mental disorder (Singleton et al, 2001, 32) and around 450 million people worldwide are estimated to have a mental health problem (World Health Organisation, 2001). Mental illness can be defined as “Medical conditions that disrupt a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning. Serious mental illnesses include major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder” (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2013). Negative stigmas …show more content…

Disclosure of mental health can lead to discrimination within the work place such as social exclusion, lack of opportunity to progress in job or over-inferring of mistakes to illness (Brohan & Thornicroft, 2010, 413). Stigmatising views and attitudes of employers and co-workers make it very hard for someone with mental health problems to compete with others in a workforce or to obtain a job, so it is easy to understand why disclosure is so …show more content…

& Yuill, C. (2011) Understanding the Sociology of Health. 3rd Edition. London: SAGE Bjorklund, Robert (1998) First Person Account: Psychosocial Implications of Stigma Caused by Misdiagnosis. Schizophrenia Bulletin 4 653-655 Brindle, David (2013), Mental health anti-stigma campaign fails to shift health proffesionals' attitudes, http://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2013/apr/03/mental-health-anti-stigma-campaign (accessed 17th December 2013) Brohan, Elaine & Thornicroft, Graham (2010) Stigma and discrimination of mental health problems: workplace implications. Occupational Medicine. 60 414- 420 Chivers,Tom (2013) Is the stigma of mental illness lifting? Jonathan Trott's Ashes exit hints that it may be, http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100247481/is-the-stigma-of-mental-illness-lifting-jonathan-trotts-ashes-exit-hints-that-it-may-be/ (accessed 13th December 2013) Corrigan, Patrick, Larson, Jonathan, Rusch, Nicolas (2009), Self-stigma and the "why try" effect: impact on life goals and evidence-based practices. World Psychiatry. 8:75-81 Corrigan & Penn (1999), Lessons from social psychology on discrediting psychiatric stigma. American Psychologist, 54

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