e focused on promoting dignity and self-worth.
Corrigan uses the term “slacktivism” in which people are able to easily endorse or support something, e.g. on social media. This takes little effort and generally doesn’t translate into any sort of meaningful action.
There are multiple large campaigns that allow for slacktivist engagement, including Bell Let’s Talk Day. There’s a ton of promotion, and these efforts capitalize on the easy buy-ins across a broad swath of the population. However, from what Corrigan has to say, these may not be very effective.
I also wonder how much having awareness days up the wazoo helps. With an awareness day for almost everything under the sun, I wonder how much the mental health-related ones stand out from the crowd.
Chances are many of us have seen (or been) people arguing about language change, such as using “completed suicide” rather than “committed suicide”, or person-first language like “person with schizophrenia” rather than “schizophrenic”. Except you know what? It can actually have a negative effect, according to Corrigan. There are a couple of elements to this. If you tell someone not to think about a white bear, what are they certain to think about? A white bear.
Also, we haven’t necessarily come that far from our inner 6-year-old; telling people what not to do naturally triggers reactance. This is a form of psychological resistance that makes us push back against the change being argued for. Corrigan also points out that language is the result of stigma, not the cause of it, so targeting language tries to address the issue backwards.
I found it interesting that Corrigan uses the term patient to refer to a role that people may play. I choose the same term in the same context, although I recognize some may see it as archaic. Apparently, surveys of people with lived experience show no particular label that’s preferred; however, “consumer” has been found to be the least preferred. That rather surprised me. Personally, I can’t stand the term consumer; I thought I was somewhat alone in this, but apparently not. The term consumer is fairly popular, though, and I wonder if that’s because organizations are trying to be politically correct.
Education as a strategy
When it comes to attempts to educate the public about mental illness, Corrigan doesn’t mince words: “Education, at least for adults, is an overrated, mostly feckless approach to erasing stigma.” He gives the example of myths versus facts as a common type of educational approach. This seems rather unfortunate; I certainly love me a good myths vs facts!
The messages are likely to go right over the head of the average person who is already prejudiced; plus, they can trigger reactance, thereby increasing stigma. Corrigan gave an example of a similar effect that’s been observed with campaigns to educate parents about vaccines, which have actually increased resistance to vaccination.
Another surprise? Apparently, public service messages that mental illness is biologically based are actually unhelpful, because people seeing these messages tend to conclude that recovery is unlikely. Even cheerful antidepressant ads about suddenly un-depressed people singing and dancing and enjoying life can also lean people towards conclusions that recovery is unlikely.
One of the messages that I tend to be quite fond of is that mental illness is just like any other else, but guess what? Such messages can actually increase perceptions of dangerousness and unpredictability.
Contact as an anti-stigma strategy
Ok, so what does work? For “normal” people to have contact with people living with mental illness. It’s most effective when the contact is with average people rather than seeing celebrities open up about their experiences with mental illness. Contact works best with people who are believable as having a mental illness but don’t conform closely with stereotypes. If the contact with someone who is acutely unwell and acting like a “crazy person”, that’s more likely to reinforce stereotypes. Contact also works better when it’s with people from similar soc