Stigma Illness and its Cultural Perspectives

Running head: STIGMA ILLNESS AND ITS CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES 1
STIGMA ILLNESS AND ITS CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES

STIGMA ILLNESS AND ITS CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
2
Overview
Mental stigma is defined as the devaluing, disgracing and disfavouring by the general society
or the individuals living in the society. Stigma often leads to the discrimination and create a
different mindset amongst the individual of the society. This also results in to the inequitable
treatment of the individuals and also denies the individual to access the rights and the
responsibilities that determine the full citizenship. Mental illness is basically considered as a
hyper diseases and therefore there underlines the stigma of the fear and insecurity. The other
people behave in a very derogatory manner. This paper outlines the cultural perspectives on
the mental illness and its impact on the mental health outcomes1.
Cultural Perspectives and its impact on the mental health
There are different cultures in the country and each has its own significance, yet when it
comes to the attitude towards the mental illness, the cultural perspectives also vary on the
basis of the individuals, families, ethnicities, countries and lastly on the basis of the culture.
Social and religious lessons regularly impact the society about the causes and nature of
sickness, and shape frames of mind towards the mentally ill individual. Therefore, getting
individual and social convictions about it has also been observed that the person suffering
from the mental illness can also affect the readiness and the acceptance of the individual to
take treatment. People often feel the mental illness is a very personal matter to deal with only
because of the lack of the acceptance from different cultures2.
The stigma basically resides in the western world whereas the same is found less in the Asian
as well as African countries. For instance some Asian groups recently have been shown to
prefer avoidance of the depressing thoughts rather than expressing them outwardly. African
American gatherings have been on the higher scale than whites to deal with personal life
issues and misery all alone, or to swing to depend on their spiritual values for help. Social
1 Bharadwaj, Prashant, Mallesh M. Pai, and Agne Suziedelyte. "Mental health
stigma." Economics Letters 159 (2017): 57-60.
2 Stuart, H. "Reducing the stigma of mental illness." Global Mental Health 3 (2016).