Stigma Associated with Mental Health and Personality Change

            With the rate of mental illness on the rise, it is impacting the lives of people across the world. According to the American Psychiatric Association, nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience some form of mental illness. People who suffer from mental illnesses, though, are typically shunned, ridiculed, or shamed. This creates a barrier, and prevents proper treatment for people suffering from mental illness. Breaking down this barrier could result in better treatment by implementing routine screenings and interventions to expose predispositions and treat the individual before the disease progresses. The American Psychiatric Association claims that mental illness is treatable, and the vast majority of individuals can continue to function in their daily lives. To end this stigma towards mental illness, we must recognize mental illness for what it is, an illness that can be treated.

            The connection between personality and mental illness is becoming more and more prevalent with the increased research in the area of mental health and treatment. It is sometimes difficult to define where one’s illness stops and personality begins, so researchers look more at individual personality traits such as neuroticism and introversion. Chi-Hua Chen and colleagues (2017) found that characteristics such as these have been linked to a possible development of a disorder later in life. Personality has a genetic component, with the environment influencing how people learn how to recognize and cope with their behaviors.

There has been a lot of debate over how to treat mental illnesses. How much is too much? Is it ethical or good to change one’s personality? This can be applied even further with personality tests that have become commonplace in order to apply for a job. The applications of mental health research go beyond the treatment of a patient and extend into many aspects of their lives and the lives of those around them. It’s important that mental health is destigmatized so we can have a better understanding of those affected and that we discuss the ethics surrounding the treatment of those with mental illness. (by HW and NB)

Sources for more exploration:

Esposito L.  2017.  Personality and Mental Illness: What's the Link?  US News and World Report.  

Liberman J.  2016.  Imagine There Was No Stigmato Mental Illness. TEDxCharlottesville. 

Foundations Recovery Network.  2019.  History of Mental Health Treatments 1800’s-2000’s.