Name Change for Schizophrenia

Extract

Psychiatric disorders carry a stigma that usually leads to discrimination and resulting problems in many walks of life. People with mental illness thus have difficulties getting a job, finding housing, and making (or keeping) friends or partners. The stigma adds misery to the life of persons with a mental disorder. It affects their families as well as professionals and others who provide them with care.

A number of studies demonstrated that people with mental disorders avoid seeking help because they are afraid of stigmatization and its consequences.^1–3 If they come to a service and their condition is given a diagnosis, they hide it. Doctors hesitate to tell their patients a diagnosis because it is stigmatized, linked to notions of dangerousness; incurability and unpredictability, which makes patients feel that there is no hope and that there is no point in following recommendations concerning their lifestyle or the treatment of their illness.