The original sin of madness--or how psychiatrists can stigmatize their patients.

A stigma is a mark of infamy or disgrace. People who are stigmatized are subject to abuse and social exclusion. Negative attitudes towards people with mental illness are attributed to stigma. In the literature, stigma is regarded as something that is attached to a person--like a badge or label. This is undermined by two facts. Firstly, it is the person who is regarded as disgraceful, not the illness or diagnosis, and secondly, the diagnosis of mental illness is itself evaluative. Mental illness is by definition bad, so to be diagnosed as mentally ill is to be defined as bad (or somehow wrong). The stigmatization of the mentally ill will not stop until this negative evaluation is removed from diagnosis.