Shame, self-identification with having a mental illness, and willingness to seek help in northeast Germany

The Mediating Role of Stigma, Internalized Shame, and Autonomous Motivation in the Relationship Between Depression, Anxiety, and Psychological Help-Seeking Attitudes in Multiple Sclerosis

“…The current results show an association between higher reported levels of chronic illness-related stigma and internalized shame and more negative psychological helpseeking attitudes. These findings are in line with previous literature examining these relationships in clinical populations and extend them to an MS population [14,15,21,22]. Higher autonomous motivation was also found to be associated with more positive psychological help-seeking attitudes.…”

“…Moreover, our research shows a relationship between internalized shame and psychological help-seeking attitudes in individuals with MS. Previous research has found an association between the experience of shame and decreased willingness to seek professional therapeutic help [21,22]. The current research extends these findings by showing that a similar relationship exists with internalized shame in an MS population.…”

“…However, there is an absence of literature exploring the role of internalized shame in individuals with MS. From the literature available, a significant association has been found between shame, both state and trait anxiety, and depressive symptoms [18,20]. Moreover, higher levels of shame were found to mediate the relationship between elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety predicting more negative psychological helpseeking attitudes and decreased willingness to seek professional therapeutic help in the general population [21,22]. Taken together, these findings have demonstrated that shame mediates the relationship between depressive and anxiety symptoms and psychological help-seeking in the general population.…”

Continuum beliefs and mental illness stigma: a systematic review and meta-analysis of correlation and intervention studies

“…Negative stereotypes are linked to labels, leading to separation of ‘us’ from ‘them’, status loss, and discrimination (Link & Phelan, 2001 ). Mental illness stigma increases symptom burden, poses a barrier to help-seeking and fosters treatment avoidance (Angermeyer, van der Auwera, Carta, & Schomerus, 2017 ; Clement et al, 2015 ; Eisenberg, Downs, Golberstein, & Zivin, 2009 ; Henderson, Evans-Lacko, & Thornicroft, 2013 ; Schulze et al, 2020 ). Since underlying categorical beliefs are central to the stigma process, continuum beliefs can be regarded as a counter of stigma at a conceptual level.…”

Stories against stigma: Comparing efficacy of a perspective-taking intervention to reduce prejudice toward persons with mental illness versus persons with HIV.

“…Surgeon General’s 1999 report, which identified stigma as the number one barrier to mental health treatment (Corrigan, 2005). Decades later, this barrier continues to operate on multiple levels: Stigma increases reluctance to seek treatment (L. N. Schulze et al, 2020) and raises the chances that a person will prematurely discontinue treatment (Sirey et al, 2001); it decreases self-esteem (Link et al, 2001) and exacerbates social impairment for persons with mental illness (Lasalvia et al, 2013).…”