Destigmatising Mental Illness?

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Challenging the assumption that the stigma attached to mental illness stems from public ignorance and irresponsible media coverage, this book examines mental healthcare workers' efforts to educate the public between 1870 and 1970. Drawing on extensive archival research, Vicky Long argues that the representations of mental illness conveyed by psychiatrists, nurses and social workers were by-products of professional aspirations, economic motivations and perceptions of the public, sensitive to shifting social and political currents. Sharing the stigma of their patients, many healthcare workers sought to enhance the prestige of psychiatry by emphasising its ability to cure acute and minor mental disorder. However, this strategy exacerbated the stigma attached to severe and enduring mental health problems. Indeed, healthcare workers occasionally fuelled the stereotype of the violent, chronically-ill male patient in an attempt to protect their own interests. Long contends that current campaigns, which conflate diverse experiences under the label mental illness, risk trivialising the difficulties facing people who live with serious and enduring mental disturbance, and fail to address the political, economic and social factors which fuel discrimination. Destigmatising mental illness makes an important contribution to the history of mental healthcare and will interest students and historians of medicine as well as researchers and students working in mental health, medical humanities and disability studies. It will also be of value to service users, healthcare professionals and voluntary sector groups who want to know if past lessons can inform current efforts to challenge the discrimination experienced by people who suffer from mental distress.