Stigmatization Of People With Schizophrenia Social Work Essay

Stigmatization Of People With Schizophrenia Social take in EssaySchizophrenia is a mental chastisementness with symptoms like delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behaviour, and inappropriate emotions (Barlow Durand, 2009). These symptoms would distort an item-by-itemists living to a certain extent. For example, the wild thoughts whitethorn result in communication problems. In fact, not totally do the symptoms of schizophrenic disquiet affect an individual(a), denttization of multitude with schizophrenic psychosis in like manner has profound effects on those masses with schizophrenic psychosis.Stigma is the general shun attitudes towards a certain group of flock (Schneider, 2004). Many scholars suggested that heap with schizophrenia ar highly injurytized (Chang Johnson, 2008 Gingerich Mueser, 2006 Prior, 2004). They ar generally described as depressed, unpredictable, violent, precarious and aggressive (Chang Johnson, 2008 Schneider, 2004). Alt hough these may be true for around cases, it is believed that there is overgeneralization of the situation. The situation would to a fault be worsened by the media (Chang Johnson, 2006), which sometimes connect schizophrenia to violent acts. For example, a person with schizophrenia would be more than than app arnt to be a murder. These negative views would trigger discrimination on muckle with schizophrenia.Schneider (2004) suggested the labeling theory to explain why concourse with mental illness dress in the manner that the general public describes as dangerous and violent. He explained that they act as dangerous and violent just because they are suckertized and hornswoggle extinct their assigned roles. Therefore, it bathroom be seen that they may really be amicableized to behave in those ways instead of behaving naturally.It should be renowned that good deal are not only stigmatized while they are crucifixion from schizophrenia. A look was done by Cheung an d Wong (2004) with 193 mint in Hong Kong on the perception of stigmatisation on race with mental illness. The result shows that the bulk agrees with the fact that most tribe believe that someone with a preliminary mental illness is untrustworthy and dangerous. Schizophrenia, being one of the mental illnesses, is of no exception. The implication of this research is that stigmatisation on people with schizophrenia is a tone-long issue, from the onset of the disorder until the end of ones life.Gingerich and Mueser (2006) suggested that stigma on people with schizophrenia may form others feel fear of and avoid interacting with those people. This fear and scheme would in turn reduce the interaction between people with schizophrenia and the public and there would be little opportunity to change the stigmatizing beliefs (Gingerich and Mueser, 2006).Holmes and River (1998) introduced the belief of genial stigma and self-stigma. The aforementioned are social stigma as the general public stigmatizes those with schizophrenia. Chang and Johnson (2008) suggested that there are social messages delivered in the stigma which may lead to self-stigmatization of an individual. This nurture stigmatization would cause even more negative effects on oneself.Effect of stigmatization on people with schizophreniaAs suggested by Tsang, Tam, Chan and Cheung (2009), stigmatization prohibits mentally ill people from recovery. Regarding situations in Hong Kong, Tsang et al. (2009) found from a survey that 80% of respondents thought social stigma has negative consequences towards mentally ill people. Compared with the high percentage, much slight respondents considered social stigmatization unacceptable. Which means quite a number of people tolerate or accept stigmatization even though they go to sleep the impact brought. Other figures found by Tsang et al. (2009) overly revealed the severeness of stigmatization in Hong Kong. For example, one fourth of respondents are hesitat e to accept people with mental illness and close 30% of respondents oppose mentally ill elderly into elderly home. These thoughts and stigmatizations contribute to the effects brought by schizophrenia and make it more serious in Hong Kong.There is no doubt that stigmatization poses negative consequences on people with schizophrenia throughout their life. Chan, Mak and Law (2009) sustain the point above after reviewing a lot of literatures. Firstly, it imposes constraints in day-after-day living on those with schizophrenia. Moreover, it may lead to lower self-esteem, decrease life satisfaction and social adaptation. It as well hinders help- assaying behavior. Apart from the above impacts, Corrigan (1998) in like manner suggested that stigmatization would lead to discrimination, followed by loss of social opportunities as members of society withhold the chances related to work or income. gum olibanum lead to poor fibre of life.It should be noted that the psychological, social and biological expectations cause the negative consequences and they are interrelated. Socially, negative attitudes towards people with schizophrenia inhibit the involvement opportunities (Corrigan, 1998). The claim is also supported by the finding by the Equal Opportunities Commission (1997) in Hong Kong. It stated that the mentally ill peoples employment rate is low (around 30%). The unemployment problems may trigger a lot of other problems. It is obvious that unemployment causes pecuniary problems. It also places send on clients relatives. Moreover, as stated by Mowbray, Bybee, Harris and McCrohan (1995), employment offers opportunities for social interaction, builds self-esteem and identity, and is the best predictor of recovery and social integration. However, without a job, there may be disappointment and self-blame of being a burden to the family or being incapable to earn a living. The psychological aspect of the people is consequently affected and may reduce life sati sfaction.Tsang et al. (2003) also suggested that stigmatization not only affect the individual but also his family or social network. An example illustrated is that a large number of people would change seats in public transport when sitting adjoining to people who appear to have mental illness. When going out with the mentally ill people, their relatives or families would feel embarrassed. Thus their emotions are also affected. And because of the stigmatization of experiences that irritate the mentally ill people, they may isolate themselves. The family is also in all probability to conceal their illness because they feel ashamed of the schizophrenic people. This is particularly true in Hong Kong as Chinese stresses the importance of collective representation of families (Tsang et al., 2003). This further prohibits the individual from interacting with other people. Because of the isolation, the individual is not quite possible to seek help from other. Without social support and s ocial resources, the schizophrenic people are hard to adapt to the environment. This forms a vicious circle and the situation may become worse.Biological aspects may also increase the seriousness of stigmatization. era of onset of mental illness may be an important factor. If a person is mentally ill since he/she was young, his/ her social network would contract down as there may be discrimination and isolation. Thus the support is limited. Moreover, if the person suffers from schizophrenia during college or secondary school, his/her education is not competitive enough in Hong Kong as there are more and more students receiving tertiary education (Census Department, 2005). With the mental illness and lower than reasonable academic achievement, they face a lot more difficulties in employment.InterventionsIt groundwork be seen that stigmatization causes many negative effects on people with schizophrenia. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the stigma on them. However, there should be some consideration when intervening in the situation. Chiu, Chui, Kelinman, Lee and Tsang (2006) pointed out that those interventions which taper on changing public attitude towards schizophrenia are actually discriminate those stigmatized to be a group that deserves special treatments. This in turn reinforces the stigmatization. Chiu et al. (2006) also stressed that there may be the possibility of making those stigmatized more aware of the fact that they are being stigmatized. They may become despondent about changing the current situation and just conform to the stigmatization.Hong Kong has actually taken some actions to intervene in the stigmatization on people with schizophrenia. However, it seems that the actions taken are not quite effective in simplification the stigma. For example, psychiatrists changed the Chinese term for schizophrenia from splitting of the mind to perceptual disorder (Chiu et al., 2006, p. 1694). However, Chiu et al. argued that the new term was re -stigmatized quickly after a short flow of time.Besides changing the name, there have been anti-stigma programmes which promote a whiz that schizophrenia is an illness like any other (Davies, Haslam, Read Sayce, 2006). Davies et al. (2006) pointed out that these programmes failed to reduce the stigma as they deliver the message that individuals cannot control themselves when they are suffering from schizophrenia. This makes the public feel that those with schizophrenia become even more unpredictable and thus increasing the stigma.As it has been mentioned, stigma on people with schizophrenia can be divided as social stigma and self-stigma. Therefore, interventions at both community and individual level are undeniable to reduce the stigma on people with schizophrenia.For the community level, Gingerich and Mueser (2006) suggested allow people understand more about the situation instead of changing how they appreciate about the situation directly. One common but effective way is e ducation (Gingerich Mueser, 2006). Education allows people to develop a better concord on schizophrenia, for example, the cause, effects and treatments. They may be able to view psychiatrical symptoms as understandable psychological or emotional reactions to life events, thus reduction the fear on people with schizophrenia (Davies et al., 2006). A research done by Chan et al. (2009) discovered that it is more effective in reducing stigma on schizophrenia if there is a lecture about schizophrenia followed by a video show which includes real cases of schizophrenia. They explained the forcefulness of the education-video model as allowing participants to get enough information and background forwards having deeper processing of the video.It is suggested that there was little or no organized advocacy by psychiatric patients to strive for their own interest (Chiu et al., 2006), like law and resource allocation on people with schizophrenia. Besides, it is suggested that poor treatm ent of schizophrenia may intensify the stigmatization of schizophrenia (Prior, 2004) because people may over-generalize those petty group who are poorly treated and have adverse symptoms as the majority of people with schizophrenia. Advocating for the improvement of operate for people with schizophrenia can thus help to reduce stigma by allowing better recovery. Besides, services like employment assistance can help integrate them in society and allow them to develop a social network (Prior, 2004).For individual level, treatments like medication, psychosocial education (Chang Johnson, 2008). In addition, family cares and supports are important to reduce stigma on an individual with schizophrenia (Chang Johnson, 2008 Gingerich Mueser, 2006) as it is the first system that the individual would situate. If the family is a supportive one, it is more likely that the individual would be less self-stigmatized.In conclusion, stigmatization poses great impacts on individuals with schizoph renia and their families. These impacts included reduced life satisfaction and social adaptation. Unemployment is also an important factor that affects social and psychological functioning of people with schizophrenia. On the other hand, interventions should not focus on changing publics attitude towards people with schizophrenia. Instead, it should focus on letting people understand more about schizophrenia and providing supports to people with schizophrenia. In the community level, there can be education and advocacy. In the individual level, there can be medication, psychosocial education and family support.