Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How stigma leads to undiagnosed mental illness
How stigma affects mental health patients
Social stigma of mental illnesses essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: How stigma leads to undiagnosed mental illness
The moment you are infected with a disease, you are label by the many imaginations of society. These imagination are not only creative and limitless in culture, but they ultimately create a division between normal and abnormal. In the novel illness as Metaphor, the American author Susan Sontag critiques how speaking disease metaphorically has many consequences by leading to the stigmatization of a disease beyond its scientific condition. Sontag teaches us that stigmatization of disease causes society to become counterproductive by developing an unfair bias when talking about disease and those afflicted with the disease. In particular, the way society discuss blindness based on metaphors create negative stereotypes of blindness and people afflicted with blindness, which by extension makes society counterproductive in understanding …show more content…
According to NIB study,which analyzed potential reasons why walloping 70 percents of blind people are not employed, they found that “hiring managers, most respondents (54 percent) felt there were few jobs at their company that blind employees could perform,...Forty-two percent of hiring managers believe blind employees need someone to assist them on the job;.. 34 percent said blind workers are more likely to have work-related accidents.’ These statistics shows us the the condition of being blind is associated with being incapable, clumsy, and unproductive in the workforce. Sontag teaches us when when we give meaning to a disease like blindness, we constructed it in a way that is punishing to those afflicted with the disease. The reality is blind people are capable individual who can carry out the job as well as a normal person in the workforce. This reality is often hidden from managers by negative stereotypes of the condition of being
As noted previously, system justification theory suggests that individuals possess a motive to justify and rationalize the status quo. According to the theory, stereotypes are often used to bolster the status quo because they easily explain differences among groups and thereby justify inequalities. The most commonly held stereotypes about mental illness in Western society are that its sufferers are dangerous, incompetent and personally responsible for their illness (Dickstein, Vogt, Handa & Litz, 2010). Not surprisingly, stereotypes like these have resulted in the persistent stigma around mental illness that exists today.
The following is a response and reflection to the article “People First Language” by Kathie Snow. My first personal interpretation of the article was of a person on a rampage and I could not understand the content of the article. The author Kathie Snow seemed to be upset that people with disabilities are labeled, instead of being addressed by their name. In her article, it appeared that she was using false analogies. Her article compared people with disabilities and medical diagnoses like psoriasis, arthritis, diabetes. I am not sure if I agree with this analogy, because not all disabilities are a physical medical issue. Some disabilities are cognitive, social, or emotional and really have no relationship with medical disabilities. Although, it takes a professional medical person in some subfield of the medical field to diagnose a disability, it just seems that, there is no correlation between medical physical issues and disability. On the other hand, there were parts of the article that
Moreover, within the text, the significance of symbolism is apparent as there are indications of the presence of different handicaps. Notably, those with above average physical attributes and above average intelligence are required by law to wear handicaps. Thus, the application and enforcement of handicaps are metaphors for sameness, because individuals with advantageous traits are limited and refrained from using their bodies and brains to their maximum abilities, for that is considered to be unfair to those who does not possess the same level of capability. Several main examples of handicaps includes “...47 pounds of birdshot… ear radios… spectacles intended to make [one] not only half blind but to [provide] whanging headaches”. Therefore, the intensity of the handicaps is a sign of the government’s seriousness in the field of administering disabilities onto their own citizens. Unfortunately, in order to maintain the sickly “equality”, the people are stripped off of their freedom. When announcers are unable to speak properly, and ballerinas are unable to dance properly, and musicians unable to perform properly, and people are unable to formulate thoughts properly — it is not a matter of equality, but a matter how low society
At the beginning, she was trying to tell readers her stories during her medical school experiences and how she felt that due to her disability, how people weren’t giving her equal rights as others and how she overcame those obstacles. With Lisa I. Iezzoni’s reading, it showcases how disability is without a doubt attached to discrimination of disability by separation of identity, people. It adheres to the moral reflection that people need to garner which emphasizes “cultural perspectives on health and illness, social justice, and the moral dimensions of patient encounters.” (Jones, Wear, Friedman, 2014). In turn, health and illness as depicted in a narrative can uncover the truth and contentions of a phenomenon through repeated phrases, metaphors and perspectives as with the case of “Stand Out”.
Examining The Discrimination of the Disabled Through An Analysis of David J. Birnbaum’s article “The Catbird Seat”
Blindness is most often perceived as just a physical disability especially when preconceived notions are embedded in one’s mind by society. Moreover an individual can be so ‘blind’ by worldviews and perceptions that the true humanity of someone that is actually blind can be overlooked. In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” (1938- 1988), Carver depicts a man versus man conflict in which the narrator was totally consumed with jealously because his wife had a ‘odd’ relationship with a ‘ blind’ man she befriended while working for him one summer.
Not only does Georgiana’s rhetoric depict how she subscribes to the opinion of “better off dead than disabled” but also shows how she falls victim to the medical model of disability. Georgiana refers to her imperfection as potentially “cureless” and demands he “remove” the flaw. Under the medical model, disability is seen as a pathology. If it is simply a pathology, disability not only has the potential to be cured but also must be cured. Additionally, the medical model’s goal of excising disability from society overlooks associated costs such as money and even
Individuals who are visually impaired are productive, skilled, and successfully employed in a wide range of
Nancy Mairs article, “Disability” (1987), explains that the world is trying to block out the fact that disability is known to be everywhere and how companies and commercial advertisers are trying to not show disabled people on their commercials so that is shows that everyone can use their product besides disabled persons. Mairs doesn 't believe this though, she believes that advertisers are scared to depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of daily life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may
“Those Jarreds...if we start having reporters all over the lawn again...” (4). While the obvious play of ethics is stated I began to think about it. What stood out to me was the detachment people, medical professionals in particular, can hold towards their patients because of human curiosity. Medical professionals occasionally need to detach that the patient is a person with a life to logically deal with their case. In doing this, human curiosity becomes a primal factor of how they respond to their patients. Patients may start to believe people view them as something to wonder at, or broken because of the physical treatment they received, and some people will. In “Mirror Image” the media becomes transfixed on the girl who has a new body. The medical procedure Alice went through will start becoming affiliated to her name. While the brain transplant will for sure affect her identity, it's also a possibility she will enable it to consume and define who she is. These perceptions I had from “Mirror Image” caused me to create my drawing to illustrate how people can have prejudice to others because of their medical
Society is quick to judge and label people different from themselves. Whether it is because of different ethnicities or any form of disability. Most of the time these labels are put forward with intention to hurt the recipient’s feelings. In the passage Nancy Mairs challenges and rebels against society’s discrimination and use of improper labels. She emphasizes that she should only be called crippled rather than handicapped or disabled because from her perspective the other labels make her seem weak and inferior. Mairs establishes her claim through the use of rhetorical devices such as tone, diction, and anaphora.
The human brain has great power and abilities, some of which we fail to realize it uses every day of our lives. This can be exemplified by our brain’s ability to create mental shortcuts by assigning labels to what is around us. Although this skill is typically good and helpful to us, “[it] can also be extremely damaging, especially when it comes to categorizing people” (Kaufman). This statement’s validity true enough that novelists have noticed and incorporated it into their work to raise awareness. Different authors have incorporated this into their work such as Barbara Kingsolver and John Irving.
When most people think of blind people, they tend to picture a person with dark sunglasses, a seeing eye dog, and a walking stick. These are stereotypes and obviously do not remain true in the case of all blind people. In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral," the main character is jealous and judgmental of his wife’s friend who happens to be a blind man. It is the combination of these attitudes that leads to his own unique “blindness." It is through this initial blindness, that the character gains his greatest vision.
It could be said that in modern industrial society, Disability is still widely regarded as tragic individual failing, in which its “victims” require care, sympathy and medical diagnosis. Whilst medical science has served to improve and enhance the quality of life for many it could be argued that it has also led to further segregation and separation of many individuals. This could be caused by its insistence on labelling one as “sick”, “abnormal” or “mental”. Consequently, what this act of labelling and diagnosing has done, is enforce the societal view that a disability is an abnormality that requires treatment and that any of its “victims” should do what is required to be able to function in society as an able bodied individual.
Another example from the book is the person who suffered from cerebral palsy. The stigmatized person in this situation reveals how he or she was protected throughout their life, until having to get out in the “real world”. By the real world, I am referring to applying to jobs in the corporate world. They explain how, “Looking for a job was like standing before a firing squad,” and how, “employers were shocked that I had the gall to apply for the job”. Personally, reading this made me realize that having a serious condition isn’t the worst of the stigmatized person’s problems, it’s how they are treated by the so called “normals”, in their quest to fit in and move up in society.