S007: Erasing the stigma of mental illness
Tracks
Track 4
| Wednesday, August 26, 2015 |
| 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM |
| Nicholls Theatrette |
Speaker
Ingrid Ozols
Several; Director, Chair, Consumer Advocate
Several; mh@work, CRESP/BDI
On Coming Out Proud to erase the stigma of mental illness
Abstract
The global community has a most negative and ugly history of how people with mental illnesses and their loved ones have been perceived and dealt with from health service providers to the general community.
Over time, sadly people with mental illnesses have had their basic human rights and liberties discarded, their citizenship, identities, stripped. Though we have in the main moved away from this in parts of the world, there are still too many places that discriminate and inappropriately behave through stigmatising attitudes that serve to compound the difficulties that already pervade mental illnesses.
The consumer and carer movement globally has been taking courageous steps in openly sharing, disclosing to various audiences about their lived experiences of mental illness. The intention has been to provide education and promote understanding to community and health providers a more humanistic side of the mental health problems that can compound and make worse the health outcomes on the individual and their loved ones. Our discussion focuses on active strategies which people with lived experience might embrace to tear down stigma and promote ideas of recovery and self-determination.
Each panel member commences sharing briefly their perspectives and reasons of how and why stigma is a challenge, what has helped and hindered in disclosing and why, if we choose to do so, what is safe and appropriate?
Prof Pat Corrigan will commence the symposia sharing his work on Self-Stigma, an additional harmful element of mental illness stigma which is a diminished sense of self-esteem. Recently innovative programs have emerged to challenge self-stigma, in part based on psychoeducation and cognitive reframing skills.
Research found an alternative program for dealing with self-stigma: “The Coming Out Proud program (COPp).
“Coming Out Proud”, is a peer-led program meant to replace the stigma of mental illness with beliefs of recovery, empowerment, and hope. The program reduces stigma by helping participants consider costs and benefits of disclosing their personal narrative, learning strategies for disclosing their story relatively safely, and crafting a message that best represents personal goals.
Keith Mahar will continue the discussion of the value of disclosure of the lived experience in relation to peer support, reducing self-stigma of people with mental health issues and recovery, reducing stigma in the mental health services re contact hypothesis, and how peer support works in accordance with Bandura's work with self-efficacy and social models.
Ingrid Ozols will share the impact of disclosing on the individual, their carer’s, and supports, how advocacy activities can be helped with disclosure, where and when disclosing may not be helpful, is there a difference between disclosing a lived experience of mental illness, caring for someone with a mental illness versus stigma beyond the grave - the lived experience of suicidal behavior, attempts, surviving a suicide.
Over time, sadly people with mental illnesses have had their basic human rights and liberties discarded, their citizenship, identities, stripped. Though we have in the main moved away from this in parts of the world, there are still too many places that discriminate and inappropriately behave through stigmatising attitudes that serve to compound the difficulties that already pervade mental illnesses.
The consumer and carer movement globally has been taking courageous steps in openly sharing, disclosing to various audiences about their lived experiences of mental illness. The intention has been to provide education and promote understanding to community and health providers a more humanistic side of the mental health problems that can compound and make worse the health outcomes on the individual and their loved ones. Our discussion focuses on active strategies which people with lived experience might embrace to tear down stigma and promote ideas of recovery and self-determination.
Each panel member commences sharing briefly their perspectives and reasons of how and why stigma is a challenge, what has helped and hindered in disclosing and why, if we choose to do so, what is safe and appropriate?
Prof Pat Corrigan will commence the symposia sharing his work on Self-Stigma, an additional harmful element of mental illness stigma which is a diminished sense of self-esteem. Recently innovative programs have emerged to challenge self-stigma, in part based on psychoeducation and cognitive reframing skills.
Research found an alternative program for dealing with self-stigma: “The Coming Out Proud program (COPp).
“Coming Out Proud”, is a peer-led program meant to replace the stigma of mental illness with beliefs of recovery, empowerment, and hope. The program reduces stigma by helping participants consider costs and benefits of disclosing their personal narrative, learning strategies for disclosing their story relatively safely, and crafting a message that best represents personal goals.
Keith Mahar will continue the discussion of the value of disclosure of the lived experience in relation to peer support, reducing self-stigma of people with mental health issues and recovery, reducing stigma in the mental health services re contact hypothesis, and how peer support works in accordance with Bandura's work with self-efficacy and social models.
Ingrid Ozols will share the impact of disclosing on the individual, their carer’s, and supports, how advocacy activities can be helped with disclosure, where and when disclosing may not be helpful, is there a difference between disclosing a lived experience of mental illness, caring for someone with a mental illness versus stigma beyond the grave - the lived experience of suicidal behavior, attempts, surviving a suicide.
Biography
Patrick Corrigan is a person with lived experience of mental illness and Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He is also principal investigator of the National Consortium on Stigma and Empowerment funded by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health. Corrigan has published fourteen books and more than 300 papers and is now editor of Stigma and Health, a journal published by the American Psychological Association.
Ingrid Ozols is a long-term national mental health advocate with a lived experience of mental illness and has been involved in many local, state and national policy reform committees and advisory groups. Ozols has held board membership and chaired several groups about mental illness, reducing stigma, recovery and peer support.
Keith Mahar is a social worker and mental health advocate with a lived experience of mental illness who has been involved in local, national and international mental health initiatives. Mahar has been employed as a peer support worker in the Personal Helpers and Mentors program since 2009 and advocates the development of the peer workforce.
