Stigma: what can psychiatrists do about it?

Abstract

The World Psychiatric Association (WPA) has initiated an international programme aiming to develop tools that will make it easier to fight stigma and discrimination because of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia has been selected as the focus for this programme for several reasons. It is a severe mental illness with symptoms that the general public usually associate with mental illness—hallucinations, delusions (often of a bizarre kind), psychomotor abnormalities, and incoherence of speech, for example. It is often of long duration and can produce various forms of impairment. Rehabilitation is therefore a difficult task, particularly when done in an intolerant and hostile environment stemming from ignorance and prejudice.