Stigma and Mental Health
Language is extemely powerful. The language that is used to describe mental health is important. I think that sometimes people forget that. I recently participated in an online discussion about whether stigma attached to mental health issues is more damaging than mental health diagnosis. One particpant, another mental health professional suggested that labels themselves do not do the damage, it is the meanings that we attach to these labels that causes damage. My question is, do words function independently of meaning? For example, is the term addict or personality disorder simply a neutral word? While I understand the author's notion that positive meaning could be attached to these terms just as much as negative ones this ignores the fact that there are meanings already attached to these words. Further, this ignores that fact that in medicine a client is often identified by their label, their mental health diagnosis. Since the beginning of my nursing career I have worked with ma