Stigmas of Mental Illness and People of Color Essay Sample

Mental health awareness has quickly climbed its way to the forefront of today’s society, mainly due to the increasing challenges in work, personal life, and interpersonal relationships disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. What has also climbed, however, is the rate of minorities suffering from either, or in some cases both, mental and substance abuse disorders, and never receive treatment. The saddening fact of the matter is that (in some instances) this is a decision that was made from ignorance. In these communities, mental health problems are treated as something that doesn’t affect people of color, and instead is portrayed as being an excuse, fabricated, and to some, shameful. Although it is true that most minorities do not have the same access to psychological resources, due to factors such as their SES, location, etc., the biggest component that hovers over minority communities is stigma. In this paper, I will discuss how the stigmatization of mental health in minority communities is a result of societal standards found in said communities, as well as how we as a society can work to dismantle from the inside out the outlook and handling of those suffering from mental illness and mental illness itself, and how important it is to have both diversity and representation in important psychological treatment settings.

Mental illness has consistently been a taboo topic in minority communities, and one cause for this is in matters of stigma. When there’s nobody for you to be able to relate to, suffering from a mental health issue can be very debilitating. Such was the case for Dior Vargas, where while growing up, “… she dealt with major depressive disorder. And while she had gotten treatment for depression throughout her life, when she hears about it in the media, the people dealing with mental illness never look like her… ‘I felt like I was alone. When people talk about mental illness, when it’s discussed or shown through the media, they never really show people of color. That’s… why I felt alone.’” (Wahowiak, 2015). Like Dior Vargas, so many minority children grow up in this cycle of feeling like what they’re experiencing is not only ostracizing them from their own community, but from society as well. By not seeing different faces to mental illness, it inadvertently reinforces the same negative stereotypes that people of color already have. 

I believe this type of belief system aligns with both the labeling theory as well as the Antipsychiatric Model of mental illness that were mentioned in Module 7. I say this due to that in several different minority groups, even though mental disorders aren’t see as being something that affects them, at the same time, if a family member came out with a diagnosis, they would not just be shunned, but also treated as if they’re “crazy”. This speaking in two tongues type of behavior not only further implicates society’s stigmas toward mental illnesses, but also makes it far worse on people of color who already feel excluded to begin with. This feeling of being separated from others within your own family system is similar to the concept of place, where “… the concept of “place” describes a person’s role and status within a particular social network or organization… in addition to being structured socially in that everyone has a particular social position, role, and status within that “place”, places are therefore occasions for social interaction… this expanded version of place allows us to view places not only as opportunities for interaction, but also as the general social conditions or contexts in which harmonious interaction is possible” (Cockerham, pp. 55-56). This sense of unspoken understanding of a person’s role/value in family systems, also shows the how quickly it is to notice the erosion of the bonds between the person suffering from an mental health issue and other family members. This behavior, as described by Cockerham as alienation, is considered to be “… the initial first step in the experience of becoming mentally ill and represents a mental condition in which a person senses a psychological barrier between himself or herself and the social situation… That is, people in this situation experience feelings of despair, panic, failure, inadequacy, dread, loss, or discomfort-even in a familiar environment. Somehow, they sense they are not themselves, nor are they part of their usual “place” … Clearly, something is lost, and that something, is normality” (Cockerham, p. 56). This is a rising concern that can be seen in people of color’s families and will only cause more detrimental effects if such behavior continues, and will not only last in minority children’s lives, but those in the future as well if the cycle continues.

This leads me finally into the importance of representation in psychological fields. In 2015, “86 percent of psychologists in the U.S. workforce were white, 5 percent were Asian, 5 percent were Hispanic, 4 percent were black/African-American and 1 percent were multiracial or from other racial/ethnic groups” (Lin et. al, 2018). Once we as a society begin to bring down the stigma around mental health and treat it with the same importance as we would physical health, it will trickle down into the different categories of ethnic minorities. To achieve this, I believe everyone needs to simply speak more about mental illness, and their own personal mental struggles, because avoiding the discussion keeps it considered a taboo topic, and only further disservices society if we are to progress on our stance on mental health. This would also help in increasing diversity in psychological fields due to their being less smoke and mirrors, as well as ignorance, around the subject of mental disorders and struggles, and would help us advance towards a society where one day, minority communities will be able to see people who look like themselves who too struggle with what they’re going through, and society itself can move forward towards a more positive, unbiased future.