The stigma associated with addiction and mental health problems in our country is very disheartening. It's pervasive, existing at all levels of our culture and society.
As a provider of counseling and treatment services for these problems, it feels to me like an invisible wall or barrier that my clients and I are often trying to climb over to get to the other side. Then there are the people who are not yet in treatment, who experience stigma as an Everest-sized mountain, too high to begin to even think about climbing.
Dr. Harold Koplewicz, one of the nation’s leading child and adolescent psychiatrists and strong advocate for child mental health, recently posted and article on Huffington Post about the divisiveness associated with children's mental health. His writings are a welcome voice of reason and information in the struggle to lower the stigma associated with mental illness and addiction in our culture.
Some of the same extreme reactions to mental health treatment are seen in other areas such as racial/religious/political differences. Differences between "us" and "other" trigger fear in us as human beings. This fear is a natural physiological survival response otherwise known as the "fight/flight" response that we humans share with other mammals.
Accurate information usually reduces fear: when we turn a light on in a dark room after hearing a noise and see that there's nothing in the room to hurt us, we quickly calm down.
We've made some progress in the addiction field in lowering the stigma barriers to make addiction treatment more accessible to those who need it. We have a long way to go with mental illness, and this dialogue can only help.
Read Dr Koplewicz's article here: Why are People so Divided When It Comes to Children's Mental Health?
A great resource about all things related to mental illness, including an extensive grassroots effort to "bust" stigma at its roots, is the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
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