Formation of Mental Health Policy

According to review articles published in the Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry, stigma towards individuals with mental disorders has been studied at length in Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia for almost half a century but have only started in Latin America’s case a decade ago.

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Written By Manisha Satheesh

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Stigma is viewed as a fundamentally “moral experience” for individuals, and threatens a person’s reality and manifests in the daily practices and social activities of its members. Therefore, cultural factors may be viewed as key in determining what shapes stigmatization. Despite knowing this, the study of stigma toward people with mental illness has focused on the development of standardized assessments that does not incorporate cultural elements. In Latin America and the Carribean there are so many diverse and multicultural lifestyles that it is hard to study stigma in this region as a context of one singular culture. This article, however, further discusses multiple facets of stigma, including familial, consumer, and multiple stigmas in Latin America and the Carribean. 

In one study, the highest levels of stigmatizing responses was found relating to child care providers, potential for violence (self-directed), unpredictability, marrying, and teaching children. It stressed that the majority of people with mental illness worldwide suffer stigma and discrimination in multiple aspects of their life: work, housing, access to health services or the legal system, etc, which correlates to the research found on mental health stereotypes from around the world. However, attitudes of compassion and benevolence that are often  associated with Latin American culture have also proven that many Latin American cultures are deeply rooted in the power of family and community and thus what the community thinks about you as an individual is very important, making it hard to protect yourself from certain stigmas. It is worth noting that perspectives on mental health problems from pre-industrialized societies generally include a religious dimension that might prevent the negative effects of stigmatization.

In Brazil, religious beliefs about mental illness are common and Christianity is the main religion, making stigmatization of mental health also more common. At the end of this review article, the researchers expressed that an effective approach in the region will require concerted global investment (economic, social, educational, and political) both from powerful stakeholders and from the community at large, as well as the incorporation of dimensions in future stigma assessments and interventions. Development of these new approaches must include suitable strategies to incorporate cultural features relevant to each community. As noted above, the influence of gender issues, the power of family and its dual role as a protective but also discriminatory agent, and the attitudes of benevolence and solidarity observed among community members should be considered for future anti-stigma interventions in Latin America.

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Written by Manisha Satheesh

Relevant Articles:

Caldas de Almeida, José Miguel, and Marcela Horvitz-Lennon. “An Overview of Mental Health Care Reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Psychiatry Online, Psychiatry Online , Mar. 2010, ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/ps.2010.61.3.218.