Stop mental health stigma

1. Be informed

There is a lot information on mental health and mental illness. The information is presented in many ways, from different perspectives and it caters for different needs. There are videos, talks, books articles and blogs on various mental health topics. More importantly there are also opportunities to engage in conversations about mental health through webinars.

You may find the following useful:

https://www.sadag.org/

A book by Dr Samke Ngcobo is also useful: Reflections of a Convoluted Mind: A journey with My Mental Illness. I found it on Amazon.

2. Introspect

Reflecting and evaluating on your own thoughts, attitudes and knowledge about mental health and mental illness is an important step in self-awareness about your own potential to stigmatise others. Self-awareness is sometimes a catalyst for the required change. Once you become aware of how your attitudes and behaviours (covered in our blog last week) perpetuate and promote mental health stigma, it is possible to start the journey of changing these to stop mental health stigma.

3. Be involved in the mental health community

Mental illness affects individuals, families and communities. Therefore to overcome mental health stigma, we need to be united in challenging and correcting stereotypes about mental illness. It is therefore important that we all engage in efforts to prevent mental illness, supporting those with mental health challenges and normalising conversations about mental health and mental illness.

Comments

Part 2 of Stress Management: Beyond Self-Awareness

When you are aware of how stress affects your thoughts, emotions and behaviors then you are better positioned to manage it. Stress management is also a journey where you learn to manage your life through self-training. In the process be patient with yourself. Below are a few points to consider as you learn to manage your stress: 1. Thought management: We are all wired to think, therefore thinking is a very normal and an important process in our brains. However a challenge happens when we overthink, over-interpret, generalize and personalize situations. This tendency can negatively affect our emotions and behaviors and it can increase our stress levels. Therefore learning to discern and manage our thoughts is important in stress management. Overthinking can be resolved by distracting yourself through engaging in healthy behaviors i.e. writing down your thoughts for a few minutes and closing the diary and engaging in something else, with plans to go back to the diary and writing at ...

Notes on Self Management: Few Ideas for Women’s Network

Why is self management important? Self management is important because it has an impact on our personal growth and reputation as it also influences how we are perceived. It is also a broad concept that is reflected in how we manage the different aspects of our lives for example Time, Finances, Relationships, Wellness, Careers, Spiritually etc. What sustains self management? 1. Constant and ongoing review of how you are doing in the different areas of your life. I sometimes use a self-rating scale: For example let’s look at your financial management currently; on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being poor, 3 average and 5 being excellent. Where would you rate your financial management? 2. Understand the behaviors that are contributing to your current self-rating. If for example you rated yourself as 2 (close to poor) Ask why? It could be there is no budget in place or even if there is a budget, maybe it is not adhered to. 3. Set goals to improve your ratings in the different ...

The face of Stigma in Mental health

Stigma in mental health reflects our beliefs, attitudes and thoughts about mental illness. These manifest through our behaviour towards people with mental health challenges and the language we use to describe their experiences. THOUGHTS AND LANGUAGE Negative assumptions People who stigmatise others often hold negative assumptions about those they stigmatise. Such assumptions are often baseless and are driven by a lack of understanding of the person and their situation. The person is often blamed for their condition through using statements like “depression is for weak people” or “depression indicates lack of faith” and “African people don’t get depressed”. All these assumptions leave people feeling inferior and put an extra burden on them. A belief of Immunity People who have not experienced mental health challenges may believe that they are immune from such. As a result they distance themselves from people with mental health challenges an...

Dr Sibu Qhogwana

Search This Blog