Stigma And Discrimination Essay

Introduction
Social and financial disadvantages are common among people with mental a disorder and have great impact on their quality of life. However, these disadvantages are not the only hardship that they have to face in their daily life. In fact, stigma and discrimination against people with mental a disorder can be worse than the mental health condition itself. They are a big barrier in the rehabilitation process and the journey towards life chances of these individuals. Public stigma, self-stigma and discriminatory behaviours all contribute to the daily struggles and build on top of the pre-existing challenges that they face in dealing with their mental health condition.

Understanding stigma and discrimination in the context of psychiatric

It is when the negative attitudes and beliefs towards people with mental a disorder are transformed into concrete behaviours and create a big gap in the power differential (Abbey et al., 2011). This power differential hinders their opportunity to participate in society as they often have little social capital and belong to marginalised groups (Michaels et al., 2014).
The mass media is one of the foremost information sources in temporary society, therefore it has a lot of power in shaping people’s perception. In the context of psychiatric-related issues, it easily makes individual defined by their illness. It is uncommon to see these individuals being portrayed as dangerous, violent and unable to work or manage their daily activities. The mass media perpetuates stigma and discrimination as it focuses and even exaggerates only negative attributions of the individual’s mental disorder, while neglect their strengths (Byrne, 2000, p. 66).
The impact of stigma and

Cook et al. (2005) indicates that more than 60% of working age individuals with mental a disorder are not in the workforce. While there are cases where these individuals are severely affected by their conditions, and are unable to work, most them face a lot of challenges and disadvantages in finding a decent job. There are also people who are in the workforce, but are underemployed, which means they want to work more, but do not have the opportunity to work at their full capacity. Low expectations and achievement standards are the results of the prejudice towards people with mental a disorder (Stuart, 2006, p. 522). This in turn discourages them from participating in the workforce or progressing in their