Efficacy of Coming Out Proud to reduce stigma's impact among people with mental illness: pilot randomised controlled trial

Abstract

Coming Out Proud has immediate positive effects on disclosure- and stigma stress-related variables and may thus alleviate stigma's negative impact.

Stigma as a stressor and transition to schizophrenia after one year among young people at risk of psychosis

“…Second and as long as public stigma persists, interventions are needed to reduce stigma-related threat and to improve the coping skills of young persons at risk; however and as stated above, this needs further investigation. Interventions in this domain might include group programs to support people with disclosure decisions, decreasing perceived stigma-related harm as well as stigma stress in recent trials (Rüsch et al, 2014a;Corrigan et al, in press).…”

“…Higher mean scores, from 1 to 7, indicate stronger agreement. As in previous studies (Rüsch et al, 2009a(Rüsch et al, ,b, 2014a a single stress appraisal score was computed by subtracting perceived coping resources from perceived harm, higher scores between −6 and +6 equalling more stigma stress.…”

Stigma and mental health challenges in medical students

“…Dr Clare Polkinghorn, for example, in her 2012 Morris Markowe award winning article entitled, ‘Doctors go mad too’, stated that, “…As a psychiatrist, I had hoped that I was pretty good at empathising with my patients…However, the last nine months of my life has taught me more about mental illness than years of clinics, ward-rounds and home visits or reading psychiatric literature…I was diagnosed with a depressive illness, detained under the Mental Health Act and spent 6 weeks in an NHS psychiatric hospital…”40 Dr Polkinghorn, in the epigram of her exposition, quotes Atticus Finch from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird : “In order to understand someone you have to slip into their shoes and walk around in them…”41 It seems that the author is suggesting that healthcare professionals who have first-hand experience of mental health challenges are able to better understand what it is like for mental healthcare service users. This understanding can facilitate empathy, which in turn can enable ‘healing’ to take place.…”

Psychotherapie und Stigma

“…Gleichzeitig sind Stigma und Stigmatisierung ein naheliegendes therapeutisches Thema für die Psychotherapie (Schomerus et al 2012), da der Prozess der Selbststigmatisierung und der Umgang mit Stigma bearbeitet werden kön-nen (Rüsch 2010). Die meisten Arbeiten zum Themenfeld Stigma und Psychotherapie haben sich deshalb mit der naheliegenden Frage beschäftigt, ob Psychotherapie einen Beitrag zur Entstigmatisierung der Betroffenen leisten kann, oder ob Psychotherapie zumindest die persönlichen Fähigkeiten zum Umgang mit Stigma verbessern kann (Rüsch et al 2014;Schomerus 2010 Eine weitere Arbeit des vorliegenden Hefts wendet sich wieder ganz den Psychotherapeuten zu -diesmal allerdings in der ungewohnten Rolle des Hilfeempfän-gers. Von Sydow (2014) untersucht mithilfe einer extensiven Literaturrecherche die Frage, inwieweit die psychotherapeutische Versorgung der Therapeuten ein Tabu darstellt, ob hier die Angst vor Stigmatisierung oder vor der Auseinandersetzung mit eigenen stigmatisierenden Haltungen die Inanspruchnahme von Hilfe verhindert.…”