Fox Joanna Ruth
School of Education and Social Care, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge CB1 1PT, United Kingdom.
World J Psychiatry. 2021 Mar 19;11(3):63-72. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i3.63.
Public stigma and self-stigma impact negatively on the lives of people with mental health issues. Many people in society stereotype and discriminate against people with mental ill-health, and often this negative process of marginalisation is internalised by people with lived experiences. Thus, this negative internalisation leads to the development of self-stigma. In this article, I reflect on my own experiences of shame and self-stigma as a person with mental ill-health socially bullied by peers from my community and social groups. I present a personal narrative of both public and self-stigmatisation which I hope will enable me to exorcise memories of internalised stigma, which are encountered as my demons of lived experience. Using reflexivity, a process used widely in health and social care fields, I consider how social bullying shattered my fragile confidence, self-esteem, and self-efficacy in the early days of my recovery; the impact of associative stigma on family members is also explored. Following this, the potential to empower people who experience shame and stigma is explored alongside effective anti-stigma processes which challenge discrimination. I connect the concept of recovery with the notion of empowerment, both of which emphasise the importance of agency and self-efficacy for people with mental ill-health. Finally, I consider how the concepts of empowerment and recovery can challenge both the public stigma held by peers in the community and the self-stigma of those with lived experiences.
公众污名和自我污名对有心理健康问题的人的生活产生负面影响。社会上许多人对有精神疾病的人抱有刻板印象并加以歧视，而这种负面的边缘化过程往往被有实际经历的人内化。因此，这种负面的内化导致了自我污名的形成。在本文中，我反思自己作为一个患有精神疾病的人，在社区和社会群体中受到同龄人社交欺凌时所经历的羞耻和自我污名。我讲述了一个关于公众污名和自我污名的个人故事，希望借此消除内化污名的记忆，这些记忆如同我生活经历中的恶魔般挥之不去。运用反思性——健康和社会护理领域广泛使用的一种方法，我思考社交欺凌在我康复初期是如何摧毁我脆弱的信心、自尊和自我效能感的；同时也探讨了关联污名对家庭成员的影响。在此之后，探索增强那些经历羞耻和污名的人的力量的潜力，以及挑战歧视的有效反污名过程。我将康复的概念与赋权的概念联系起来，这两者都强调了对患有精神疾病的人来说能动性和自我效能感的重要性。最后，我思考赋权和康复的概念如何能够挑战社区中同龄人所持有的公众污名以及有实际经历的人的自我污名。
