Reduce the stigma surrounding mental health difficulties

With my work, I want to contribute to help individuals consider seeking help for mental health difficulties as important and usual as it is for physical difficulties.

I believe that therapy can help anyone to change and improve their lives. However, there are barriers that prevent people from seeking help. The most significant barrier is associated to stigma, embarrassment and discrimination. 

Nowadays there is often the tendency to make quick judgments about what seems to be an acceptable or ‘normal’ way to be, feel and think. This often leads to describe people’s personalities as ‘wrong’ ‘broken’ or ‘disordered’. This way of talking about mental health difficulties and related misconceptions contribute to the isolation and discrimination of people, which will only worsen their life experience as well as their difficulties. 

Although attitudes towards mental health difficulties are changing and improving, at least on more common mental health problems, there are still many myths that need to be challenged. It is important to challenge these myths so that we can promote a more realistic understanding of mental illness. This is central to be able to provide real support to people who experience mental health difficulties.

With my work, I want to contribute to promote a realistic, balanced, reflexive and normalised way of talking about mental health difficulties. I believe that talking about mental health can make a huge difference to many people’s life. Raising awareness of mental health difficulties will make a significant contribution to the provision of support within our community.