Stigmatize this!(Psychology) (mental illnesses)

• Author: Vatz, Richard E.

ONE OF THE MOST consequential--but almost never disputed--arguments in psychology and psychiatry is the objection to stigmatizing mental illness or aberrant behavior. In the 1960s, there began the "do your own thing" movement, which reflected the consensus among behavior scientists that group norms of behavior were not worth honoring, that they interfered with the unfettered freedom of youth to behave without consequences in whatever way they wished. Thus unfolded an era in which bullying rarely was punished in schools or demeaned by school authorities. This philosophy gradually morphed into opposition to anyone's believing that certain behaviors or mental illnesses should be an object of disgrace or seen as something which ought to be embarrassing to the person who exhibited the behavior. Further pushback against the bugaboo of stigmatization was the aversion to shaming those who sought professional help for their behavior.

There may be no topic on which Americans are more lacking dissent: we must eliminate stigma for those who are "mentally ill." The issue is decades old, however, and there is little, if any, reason to believe that there ever will be the elimination, or even diminishing, of said infamy.

The reason that mental health professionals and others wish to remove the stigma from mental illness is this: they believe that such removal will motivate sufferers to seek help and, not only help themselves but reduce the threat that a tiny percentage of those so labeled pose to people they know, as well as the general population.

In March, the Baltimore Sun reported in an article titled "UMBC [University of Maryland at Baltimore County] Study Targets Stigma of Mental Illness" that the state has funded a $1,200,000 initiative called the Center for Excellence on Early Intervention for Serious Mental Illness for the purpose of "getting troubled people" help to limit the danger that such individuals cause.

The theory is that, with destigmatization, dangerous people specifically would seek professional counseling which would head off the violence they eventually might commit. There is no evidence that dangerous people seek such help--perhaps because they do not believe that they have a problem.

A recent case in point is Darion Aguilar, a man who shot and killed two employees in The Mall in Columbia, Md., and who apparently claimed to have referenced--but did not complain consistently about--hearing voices to a physician, who recommended that...