Debate: Should mental health anti-stigma campaigns be a priority?

In the first of our guest opinion posts, Judith Haire shares her thoughts on where money should go in mental health

I’ve experienced mental illness and been on the receiving end of unkind comments. I applaud the Time To Change anti stigma campaign run by the leading mental health charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness.  One in four adults will experience mental health problems and one in four children. Stigma is a problem that can stop people seeking help, can erode already fragile self-esteem and confidence and can hinder recovery.

I am all for changing people’s attitudes and behaviour and removing the stigma associated with mental illness but we can take away the stigma and we are still left with the ever-growing problem of mental illness. I really can’t see the point of pouring endless sums of money into anti-stigma campaigns when this money could be deployed on researching the causes of mental illnesses and the best treatments for these illnesses

I believe the burden of mental illness in the UK is widely under-estimated. Poor mental health affects our ability to work, it affects our ability to have fulfilling relationships, it affects our physical health and our ability to have a fulfilling social life.

Poor mental health costs us £100 billion a year in the UK.

In one year there are 13 million working days lost to stress related illnesses.

A third of a GP’s time is spent dealing with mental health problems and around a quarter of people with mental health problems are taking prescribed medication.

Mental illness causes 15% of our country’s disease burden but only receives 5% of the total health research spending. £74 million is spent in a year on research into mental illness but this figure needs to be nearer £200 million over the next 5 years.

In fact, current spending needs to be trebled. The Department of Health and Comic Relief have given the Time To Change campaign a further £20 million – I would prefer this to be spent in different ways.

A strategic analysis of mental health research funding in the UK (Department of Health, 2005) identified some major gaps in research funding. For example, research into the promotion of mental health and well being and research into common mental illnesses like anxiety disorders and research into suicide.

More research is needed into the links between diet and mental health and there are more questions to be answered surrounding the diagnosis of schizophrenia

There is a need for laboratory and epidemiological research into the causes of mental health problems (genetics, environmental factors and their interaction).

More research is needed on the treatments for mental health problems and most importantly to look at interventions to prevent mental illnesses

We need scientists and researchers to look further into genetic aspects of mental illness and at developing newer and kinder treatments for mental illnesses; treatments that do not have devastating side effects like type 2 diabetes, obesity, cataracts, sedation, tremor, muscle rigidity, insomnia or fluid retention. These side effects are debilitating and can require specialist treatment and surgery.

Let’s reassess our spending and not make anti stigma campaigns the priority.

Judith Haire is a Sheffield University Politics Graduate. She is author of Don’t Mind Me (Chipmunkapublishing. 2008). She contributed to Mental Health Publishing and Empowerment by Jason Pegler (Chipmunkapublishing, 2009) and Our Encounters With Madness (Ed. Grant, Biley & Walker, PCCS Books, 2011). She has written for Mental Health Practice, Community Care and Your Voice (Sheffield) magazines. www.judithhaire.vpweb.co.uk

Guest posts reflect the views of their authors and do not neccesarily reflect the views of One in Four magazine.

14 Responses to Debate: Should mental health anti-stigma campaigns be a priority?

  1. I fully agree with your stance. May I just point out that money is needed also to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia possibly using psycho-education and rTMS.
    Diagnosis is important, but prevention and treatment even more so not to mention prevention of relapses.

  2. Thank you, Judith, for an interesting post, raising debate about such an important topic.

    I think more research is needed, but the kind of research that needs to be done is a matter of differing opinions. I think more attention needs to be given to the social conditions which affect people’s mental health. Like The Critical Psychiatry Network, I disagree with the emphasis on biological research. Both here and in the US so much research focuses on neurobiology and genetics. Yet, after many years of research, there is no evidence that brain disease is the basis of what are known as mental illnesses. The Campaign to Abolish Psychiatric Diagnoses (rightly in my view) calls for an end to the years of fruitless research to find biological correlates which ‘continue to deliver nothing clinically useful.’

    I would like to see more recognition of the importance of user-led research into issues of concern for the service user, which often professionally-led research has failed to address. I agree, Judith, that drug treatments have debilitating effects on the lives of people who take them. More research is neeeded to look into service users’ experiences of psychiatric drugs and into finding alternatives to drug treatments. The unaceptable adverse effects of drugs tends to be ignored or denied when research is initiated and funded by drugs companies motivated by their profits.

    I appreciate the good work and intentions of the Time to Change anti-stigma campaign. We do need to fight against stigma, but perhaps we should look first at the stigmatising attitudes coming from within the mental health services and question the validity of stimatising diagnostic labels.

    • Anti stigma campaigns do object to the labels. For example, Rethink recently had an, “Unhappy Birthday” event for schizophrenia, which objects to the treatment of those with the label schizophrenia, and schizophrenia as a label itself. Mind and Time to Change focus a lot on talking treatments and service user involvement and far less on the medical treatments for mental illness.

      • I don’t disagree with that. I was thinking of how the Time to Change campaign focuses mainly on changing the attitudes of the public to reduce stigma, a laudible aim. However I do feel we need to look also (or, indeed, first) at the attitudes of mental health professionals, particularly of those who adhere rigidly to the medical model.

    • You make many really valid points here Jean I also think we need to focus on changing the attitude within the media, as so many stigmatising headlines appear in the tabloids and stigmatising comments creep into our TV soaps

  3. I posted this on Facebook but will repost here for the sake of debate:

    Interesting, but I disagree. You can throw all the money you like at research (the genetic basis of schizophrenia is hugely researched and a lot of research is tied up in the pharmaceutical industry) but it won’t do much to actually improve the lives of people with mental illness if stigma still exists. Do you think society will care more if antipsychotics make us less fat? Also, £20m is nothing in terms of spending.

    Antipsychotics will never make us less fat because of the chemicals they work upon. You’re also coming solely from the medical model- remember that a lot of people value their identity as someone with mental health problems, and value their experiences. Even if there was a cure, there is no guarantee whatsoever that people would take it.

    • Yes I saw this on facebook and commented Seaneen. Anti psychotics make us crave carbohydrates yet there are some (e.g. Abilify) which do not cause so much obesity. I am aware that many people value their identity as someone with mental health problems and that is entirely up to them. I cannot see that many people would reject a cure if there was one though. The £20m I mention is further funding to top up what has already been invested. Research will improve the lives of people with mental illness because it can lead to ways of preventing mental illness and come up with more effective and kinder treatments. If stigma exists it is derived from people’s fear of mental illness and that’s where education comes in and maybe this could start in the education system itself

  4. Research is showing that anti-stigma campaigns are failures, they don’t work. I would suggest put your dollars into economic development and dealing with poverty issues, it’s terribly debilitating. the best anti-stigma campaign we can have is to help people become tax paying, employed, home owning, car driving, married, baby making, voting citizens. Society will overlook a lot of craziness when you’re working and paying taxes.

  5. Good article- both persuasive and clear. Good for you,

  6. How do you feel the recent TV portrayals of mental illness have been e.g. Claire Danes in Homeland?
    It may be that such coverage can make progress in de-stigmatising mental illness where the sufferers can hold down a job, but that more serious mental illness remains difficult. This would still be progress.

  7. Sadly I’m not sure I agree that the antistigma campaigns are a waste of money. I wish I could because I havne’t really got any confidence that they will achieve there aims, in fact pretty much the opposite, however I do feel that what they will do is raise awareness of all issues relating to the poor state of research, treatment and desicrimination of people with mental health to a wider audience something that I feel can only improve the chances of money being made availible to combat the problems.
    The fact is that many people have been campaigning for more money for mental health for many years and you just don’t hear about them if these campaigns raise peoples awareness even for a short time it may improve the chances of money being given where it’s needed.

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