stigma | stigma

Mar.13.2013 A Big Victory in Reversing Stigma For a long time, people in the general populace have assumed that those plagued by mental illness are dangerous. That attitude has spilled out in books, movies, newspapers, ad nauseum. Almost nobody knew the long proven psychological fact that we are LESS likely to be violent. Two things have...	Aug.11.2012 Is He One Of Yours My latest blog post up at Psychology Today, an essay on stigma; it goes both ways. This essay has had a tremendous response and I hope you'll read it and think about it. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/notes-the-frontline/201207/is-he-one...
Apr.23.2011 Living With the Stigma of Mental Illness Stigma persists despite the knowledge that bipolar disorder is has a biological basis. It is a brain disorder, and yet the vast majority of people in our society see mental illness as something that can be willed away. Or not as valid as physical illnesses such as diabetes. If you have a mental...	Oct.04.2010 How Aware are You? It’s Mental Health Awareness Week. The photo on the left is of Clifford Beers. He’s the person who comes to mind when I think of Mental Health Awareness. His book, “A Mind That Found Itself,” gave the world a glimpse of the way people with mental illness were treated at the time (1908). He changed...
Aug.31.2010 The Stigma of Mental Illness Lately I’ve gotten many comments from friends, family, and strangers alike about how open and honest I am about my life. That it’s courageous, and I’m brave. My first reaction is to wave that off and say it isn’t that I’m brave. When I started writing Magical Shrinking it didn’t occur to me that...	Jul.14.2009 Let Go, Let Peace Come In I've recently been invited to serve on the Board of Directors of a foundation called Let Go,Let Peace Come In at www.letgoletpeacecomein.org/ . Their mission is: "To bring healing, support, and awareness to the hundreds of millions of adult childhood sexual abuse survivors and their families...
May.27.2009 If I had started a band, I'd be a Punk Rock Star Why is there so much stigma around self-published authors, and yet a self-recorded musician is praised as a creative entrepreneur? Any fledgling, unsigned musician with “Garageband” can make a demo and post it on MySpace. No one looks down on them for doing so; in fact, many great bands have...	Nov.26.2008 Bipolar Bipolar. Bipolar. Bipolar. I am proud to be bipolar. After nearly nine years of dealing with this awful disease that gives us delusions and paradise...sometimes simultaneously....I've decided to write a book about dealing with the illness and how it manifested for my character (of course, of which...