Stigma-fighting ideas

Can Sound-Based Art Break Down the Stigma Around Mental Health?

AlanJames Burns is drawing a parallel between sound and mental health through psychoacoustic sound artwork. These pieces, performed in pitch black caves around Ireland, are designed to recreate the human thought process and mental health overall. The entire experience mimics the way the mind works, and comments on many mental health struggles, such as hearing voices or having anxiety. Through depicting the mind with sound, Burns is breaking the stigma and spreading the word about mental health.

Beyond the Stigma: New program helps nurses struggling with addiction

Beyond the Stigma: New program helps nurses struggling with addiction

Getting help for a substance use disorder can already be scary, but what if asking for help also meant losing your job and career? A program in New Hampshire is working to reduce the stigma of addiction for nurses by providing an innovative new program to assist nurses in accessing services without risking their license.

“Therapy Influencers” Are Using Instagram to Spread Mental Health Awareness

“Therapy Influencers” Are Using Instagram to Spread Mental Health Awareness

For better or worse, social media plays a major role in shaping our attitudes and beliefs. Teen Vogue discusses how mental health providers are turning to social media to combat #DistortedPerceptions and break down barriers to therapy.

Maintaining A Healthy Relationship

Maintaining A Healthy Relationship

NAMI provides concrete advice on how to maintain healthy relationships with family members who are experiencing behavioral health crises. Stigma feeds on isolation, silence, and assumptions.  Learn how to help those you love by improving communication, expanding your personal support system, and examining your own preconceived ideas about mental health challenges.

How Harm Reduction is Saving Lives

How Harm Reduction is Saving Lives

Stigma surrounding harm reduction often stems from a lack of understanding or knowledge. Dr. Adi Jaffe highlights several key harm reduction strategies to break down what it all means and how it works.

Safe injection sites and reducing the stigma of addiction

Safe injection sites and reducing the stigma of addiction

Harvard Professor and Physician, Dr. Scott G. Weiner, compares substance use disorders to other chronic illness to highlight the unjust stigma placed on addiction. Dr. Weiner discusses safe injection sites and harm reduction as a possible way to reduce stigma and provide proper healthcare to those suffering.

Sex Workers and the Harm Reduction Movement - Part One

Sex Workers and the Harm Reduction Movement - Part One

Experts on Sex Worker rights and Harm Reduction weigh in on the similarities between the two movements and how they can best support each other in achieving shared goals. While not addressing stigma directly, this article serves to highlight how stigma has left many people out of the harm reduction conversation and why this topic of the month includes articles on both substance use and sex work.

New Legislation - Mental Health Education in schools

When school health curriculum fails to address behavioral health, it further contributes to the feeling that a student’s mental health is not as important as their physical health. This article looks at new legislation proposals that would require mental health to be included in the larger health curriculum. This is vital in reducing stigma for students who wish to discuss their emotional well-being or seek treatment, and ensuring that they have a right to health without restrictions or shame.