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Caring for Yourself: Learning to Live with a Substance Use Disorder
Substance use and misuse have reached epidemic proportions across the United States. In a 2020 survey, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) estimated that more than 40 million individuals across the country over the age of 12 have a substance use disorder, with...
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The Mental Health Association of Westchester’s Intensive and Sustained Engagement Team (INSET)
Anyone involved in the mental health system, whether an individual diagnosed with a behavioral health condition, family member, or practitioner of services, knows that there is pervasive stigma in our country concerning mental health. Although the COVID pandemic has brought increased attention to...
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Substance Use Disorders: Frequency and Treatment for People with Serious Mental Illness
Throughout its history, America has attempted to punish substance users as a means to encourage their abstinence. These attempts have included imprisonment, fines, and forced rehabilitation programs, often sentenced at a higher rate to people of color (Volkow, 2023). Punishments like these often...
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When Stigma is the Greatest Barrier: Strategies to Connect Older Adults to Treatment
When Client R, age 68, was referred to Service Program for Older People (SPOP) ten months ago she described symptoms of depression and anxiety – and she stated emphatically that therapy was for “rich white people” and not for her. She identified herself as an older Black Puerto Rican lesbian...
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Organizational Strategies for Anti-Stigma Work Within Our Four Walls
Mental health stigma affects all of us. It is so ingrained in our society, that we have to consciously choose to share or not to share our experiences or connections to mental health challenges. This conscious level decision-making brings a processing we engage in asking ourselves either, “Am I...
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The Impact of Stigmatizing Language from Family and Clinical Perspectives
Mental health challenges can impact everyone. Even if you have not been personally affected, you likely know someone who has – whether it is a family member, friend, or an individual you support as a behavioral healthcare provider. Mental illness is defined as mental, behavioral, and emotional...
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Reducing Stigma Through Harm Reduction Interventions
Services for the UnderServed (S:US) is one the largest community-based health and human services organizations in New York State that works intentionally daily to right societal imbalances by providing comprehensive and culturally responsive services. The pandemic has deepened many of the...
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Stigma: How Vocabulary and Language Can Make a Difference
Compassionate language can improve care and change the stigma associated with substance use disorder. The terms or phrases healthcare providers use to discuss substance use are often imbued with negative connotations that create bias. Research shows harm reduction-based vocabulary and education can...
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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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Simple Tools to Overcome Everyday Mental Illness Discrimination
When does stigma turn into discrimination? Mental illness stigmas are negative attitudes and assumptions about people living with mental health problems, including the damaging and inappropriate stereotypes that we are dangerous, incapable, or socially undesirable. As someone living openly with...
