The podcast which we talk about is an interview with the psychologist Arthur C Evans and deals with how he tries to fight the stigma of mental illness in Philadelphia, which may be a « difficult barrier for many » to have the reflex of going in mental health services, and leads people with mental illness to be outcasted, or even rejected from society. Deconstructing stereotypes will be helpful in many ways, as Arthur C Evans explains : “we feel strongly that if we’re really going to help people, we’re not only going to need to make sure the services are there, but people are actually going to reach out for those services.”
So, this interview provides a way to fight mental illness stereotypes in everyday life to improve access to healthcare. In the first part, fighting stigma can be seen in pharmacy, where the psychologist interviewed implements useful screenings to give some information about symptoms that users might have. This task is also a large responsibility of the psychology community, like explains the psychologist in the interview : « I often talk about our field working on a black box principle » and « They are sort of a mystery to the community ». So psychologists have « to let people see [them] in a different kind of role ». At last, the psychologist talks about a program that he applies : the mental health first aid that he defines as a « one day training course » to recognize and understand mental illness and then « know how to support the person and/or refer the person for other help or to seek self-help »
At first sight, I agree with the idea to make psychology theories more accessible to the public, and especially that psychology community have to « demystify what they’re doing », and should be more open to the public. The mental illness is not the only target of stereotypes, therapy and psychologist are too. We can often hear “i will not going to a therapy, I’m not mad”, or “if you are a psychologist, you will analyze me, so I don’t talk to you”. There is a lot of imaginaries fears fed by the lack of information about what a psychologist is doing during a therapy.
I agree with the intention, whereas I think that mental health first aid is a wrong way to do it. I think there is a contradiction, because you want to fight stigma creating more understanding about mental illness, helping to recognize symptoms to break stereotypes but you create more stigma, because if there is someone who triggers psychotic crisis, or has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, people without the formation of a psychologist can just label all the behaviors as mental illness. It reminds me of a patient I have seen with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. She was absolutely afraid that other patients could discover his mental illness, to the extent that she controls everything she said or did.
The other problem of this one-day course is that one day is not enough and doesn’t replace the five-years formation of a psychologist. For example, a risk wich psychologist students are exposed in the first year is to recognize themselves in any disorder they study, but it’s normal and it will decline over time. Whereas, this one-day course could entail a lot of anxiety to people if they recognize themselves during the course, like “I have an obsessive-compulsive disorder”. It’s the same thing that reading doctissimo and listing, exaggerating all your symptoms, and you will panic because you self-diagnose a cancer.
To sum up, it’s good to want vulgarizing in order to break stereotypes of madness, but recognizing symptoms and cares about it, it has to remain the responsibility of the psychologist. Like one-day first aid training doesn’t make you a physician, one-day course don’t help neophytes reacting to a psychotic crisis or suicidal crisis. The best way should remains to show people where they can find help, where they can orientate, or who they can call in case of emergency.
Source : https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/health-stigma
Words I have learned :
Healthcare : soins de santé
To implement : mettre en place
To entail : entraîner, provoquer
First aid : premiers secours
To trigger : déclencher