The Mental Emotional Health Blog

According to George Carvalho, “stigma is the shame that individuals in society place upon others suffering with mental health issues to distance themselves clearly and definitively from them” (http://www.namiscc.org/newsletters/April02/ClientStigma.htm).  Although I don’t necessarily agree with everything he states in his article, it’s a short and interesting read.

Stigma in mental health has decreased somewhat over the past few years, in part due to a slight adjustment by the news media, television, and movies. More often, however, I think it has been the combined effort of mental health providers, medical providers, social workers, and some government officials that have worked to lessen stigma. In 2004, Wisconsin’s Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton joined the fight against mental health stigma in a big way (http://www.wimentalhealth.org/userimages/LawtonHonorary.pdf). Thank you, Lt. Governor Lawton!

Actually the best way to defeat stigma is word-of-mouth, person-to-person, by people that are educated about mental health. Mental health concerns can be debilitating and frustrating. Continuing the stereotypes about mental health, and using derogatory terms like “crazy”, “psycho”, and “wacko”, make life more difficult for people that many times are trying to get better. Jokes and laughing about mental health stereotypes on television shows and movies don’t help either.

As I said before, the best way to defeat stigma is person-to-person. Remember that everyone is a person, so try to say “He or She is a person with Bipolar”, instead of “He or She is Bipolar”. Everyone has normal in them, and everyone has something that could be considered a mental illness trait. But we’re all human.

Having a moral compass is knowing what is right and what isn’t.

Having moral strength is doing what is right when you are tempted to do something wrong, or tempted to do nothing.

Have you ever heard of the Ripple Effect? Jacob Kounin wrote a book in the area of education, Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms (1970), discussing the idea that when one student in a class is reprimanded or disciplined, other students may tend to comply even if they were not addressed directly. According to Wikipedia, The Ripple Effect is a term also used in sociology, economics, and spiritual activism.

For people that use systems-thinking, which views individual problems (or components) as part of a larger system, The Ripple Effect makes sense. For any direct intervention there are other effects because one person or situation is also part of, and therefore interacts with, a larger system or situation.

So today, I want to use the Ripple Effect angle as a way to emphasize how important it can be to be positive and healthy. Whether you say that laughter is contagious or smiles are contagious, you’re absolutely right. Positivity affects other people positively, just as negativity tends to affect people negatively. When a positive and negative person meet and influence each other, whoever has more patience will have the greater influence. That is where health becomes part of the equation.

A healthy person will tend have positive energy and generally will have the patience to stay positive. But the thing about positive people is that they also tend to share their positive energy with others, and that promotes health in a workplace, classroom, or community. If enough people buy into positivity and health frequently enough, a healthy culture is established. People are more productive, more supported, more supportive, and less stressed.

And that is why genuine smiles and compliments are so important. They ripple out to people beyond the people you shared your positive energy with.