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New York City Should Become the Site of a National Museum of Mental Health
New York City prides itself on being a center of cultural institutions, boasting proudly on its tourism website that “there's an institution for every interest in the City.” The city is the site of roughly 170 museums! Yet, inexplicably, there is currently no museum focused on improving public...
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City Voices: A Peer‑Run Legacy of Connection, Recovery, and Community
In 1995, a man named Ken Steele began what he described as his recovery from a “30‑year schizophrenic odyssey.” His story stretched across the United States — from Hawaii to New York City — through periods of homelessness, halfway houses, and profound disconnection. Everything changed...
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Addressing Stigma Among High School Students Using NAMI’s Ending the Silence
Middle adolescence (corresponding to ages 14-18, when youth typically attend high school) is a potentially critical period for both the development of mental health conditions and targeting mental health stigma. Approximately 50% of all diagnosable mental health conditions develop in middle...
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Insights From Four Stigma-Reducing Roundtables Organized by the New York State Office of Mental Health and Behavioral Health News
The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) in partnership with Behavioral Health News (BHN) organized four roundtable discussions as part of a larger strategic plan to reduce the stigma of mental illness. The roundtable panels consisted of experts working in community-based agencies, most...
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Associative Stigma: An Unseen Force Impacting Mental Health Professionals and Service Users
Stigma toward people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses is a powerful force with pervasive impacts, some of which operate in subtle ways. In explaining the broad-reaching effects of stigma, Goffman (1963) asserted that persons who are “related through the social structure to a stigmatized...
