The paradox of self-stigma and mental illness.

Abstract

Published narratives by persons with serious mental illness eloquently describe the harmful effects of stigma on self‐esteem and self‐efficacy. However, a more careful review of the research literature suggests a paradox; namely, personal reactions to the stigma of mental illness may result in significant loss in self‐esteem for some, while others are energized by prejudice and express righteous anger. Added to this complexity is a third group: persons who neither lose self‐esteem nor become righteously angry at stigma, instead seemingly ignoring the effects of public prejudice altogether. This article draws on research from social psychologists on self‐stigma in other minority groups to explain this apparent paradox. We describe a situational model of the personal response to mental illness stigma based on the collective representations that are primed in that situation, the person's perception of the legitimacy of stigma in the situation, and the person's identification with the larger group of individuals with mental illness. Implications for a research program on the personal response to mental illness stigma are discussed.

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“…Labelling theory (Link, 1987) appears to have been applied most frequently to stigma and coping in patients, followed by the identity threat model (Major & O'Brien, 2005). Situational models (Corrigan & Watson, 2002;Major, Kaiser, & McCoy, 2003; appear to have sound theoretical backgrounds, but do not appear to have been empirically tested in their application to coping with mental illness. Therefore, further investigation regarding the application of these theories to coping with stigma of mental illness would be beneficial to enhance our understanding.…”

“…However, this study was a cross-sectional design and cannot infer causality. In addition, Corrigan and Watson (2002) claim that stigma related stress can be situation specific, which was not measured in Rüsch, et al's. (2009) study.…”

“…Three types of stigma have been proposed: public stigma, self-stigma, and label avoidance (Corrigan & Watson, 2002). Public and self-stigma involve the same three components: stereotypes, which refer to negative beliefs about a group, prejudice when the stereotype is agreed with, leading to the creation of a negative emotional response, and discrimination which refers to behavioural responses to prejudice.…”

“…However, these strategies can lead to negative consequences for social networks, employment and selfesteem. Corrigan and Watson (2002) proposed that not everyone labelled with a mental illness experiences low self-esteem as a result. claim that self-stigma and empowerment are on opposite poles of a continuum.…”

“…Therefore it might be argued that the impact stigma has on the individual may vary. This notion is hypothesised by Corrigan and Watson's (2002) model which states that not everyone in a stigmatised group experiences negative effects from it.…”