1. Stigma and Mental Health

2. What is stigma? S ecrecy T aboo I gnorance G ulf M yths A voidance

3. Myths People with mental health problems are in a minority People with schizophrenia, alcoholism, drug addictions are dangerous to others Individuals with any mental illness are unpredictable, hard to communicate with People with depression, eating disorders, alcoholism and drug addiction need to pull themselves together Ref: ONS Survey by Royal College of Psychiatry UK (2003) http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/PDF/report_9803.pdf People who commit suicide are selfish Joiner,T. (2011). Understanding and overcoming the myths of suicide. Psychiatric Times ; 28: 1 (19 th Jan) at www.psychiatrictimes.com

4. Results of Stigma Less than 4 in 10 employers would consider employing someone with a mental health problem 1 in 3 people with mental health problems report being dismissed/forced to resign 44% of people with mental health problems thought they had experienced discrimination from GPs 18% would not disclose their condition to a GP 24% thought individuals with a history of mental health problems should be excluded from public office Department of Health Research Report on Attitudes to Mental Illness, (2000) 30 March www.dh.org.uk and Mental Health Foundation Survey (2000) “Pull Yourself Together” April www.mentalhealth.org.uk

5. Further Reading See also: World Health Organisation. Promoting mental health: concepts, emerging evidence, practice: a report of the World Health Organization, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in collaboration with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation and the University of Melbourne. (URL: http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/MH_Promotion_Book.pd f) http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/MH_Promotion_Book.pd f Victoria Health Promotion Foundation., 2005. A plan for action 2005- 2007. Promoting mental health and wellbeing. (URL: http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/en/Publications/Mental-health- promotion/A-Plan-for-Action-2005-to-2007.aspx)

6. This work was produced as part of the TIGER project and funded by JISC and the HEA in 2011. For further information see: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/tiger. http://www.northampton.ac.uk/tiger This work by TIGER Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at tiger.library.dmu.ac.uk.tiger.library.dmu.ac.uk The TIGER project has sought to ensure content of the materials comply with a CC BY NC SA licence. Some material links to third party sites and may use a different licence, please check before using. The TIGER project nor any of its partners endorse these sites and cannot be held responsible for their content. Any logos or trademarks in the resource are exclusive property of their owners and their appearance is not an endorsement by the TIGER project.