“My illness is invisible!”: revisiting the stigma of being mentally ill

Authors

  • Virginia Moreira Universidade de Fortaleza
  • Anna Karynne Melo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5380/psi.v12i2.7289

Keywords:

stigma, mental illness, phenomenology

Abstract


In this article, we describe part of the results of the first year of a longitudinal project about the lived experience of stigma among those with mental illness in Northeast Brazil. Using the critical phenomenological method, 30 interviews with patients in a public hospital in Fortaleza, Brazil were analyzed. The results show the presence not only of stigma but of self-stigma in the lived experience of mental illness. In addition to stigma and self-stigma, behaviors of shame, isolation and keeping the illness in secret are developed because of the pejorative image of mental illness, in the traditional comprehension of stigma as being associated to madness. Besides this comprehension, the lived experience of stigma, as well as of self-stigma appears also qualitatively related to the “invisible” character of mental illness.

 

Keywords: stigma; mental illness; phenomenology.

Author Biography

Virginia Moreira, Universidade de Fortaleza

Virginia Moreira é psicoterapeuta e supervisora clínica no enfoque humanista-fenomenológico, Doutora em psicologia clínica pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP), Pós-doutora em Antropologia Médica pela Harvard Medical School. Professora titular do Programa de Mestrado em Psicologia da Universidade de Fortaleza – UNIFOR, onde é co-coordenadora do Laboratório de Psico(pato)logia Crítica-Cultural. Pesquisadora da Associação Universitária de Pesquisadores em Psicopatologia Fundamental.

Downloads

How to Cite

Moreira, V., & Melo, A. K. (2008). “My illness is invisible!”: revisiting the stigma of being mentally ill. Interação Em Psicologia, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.5380/psi.v12i2.7289

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 2 (2008)

Section

Articles

License

The approval of articles implies the immediate acceptance, with no imposition, that the journal Interação em Psicologia will have the exclusivity of the first publication of the article. The authors will, notwithstanding, keep the copyrights for future publications. In case of republication of the articles in other media, it is demanded the mention to the first publication in the journal Interação em Psicologia. The authors also authorize their articles to be available in all the indexes of which the journal is included. 

The Editorial Board is not responsible for the concepts or statements expressed in the published works, which are the sole responsibility of their authors.

The journal Interação em Psicologia offers immediate open access to all its content, following the rationale that offering gratuitous scientific knowledge to the public promotes the democracy of knowledge and published works tend to produce higher impact. The published articles in the journal are available under the Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). According to this license, the access, distribution, reusing of the articles for non-commercial sources are allowed, provided that the authors and the source is referenced. When submitting articles to the journal Interação em Psicologia, authors agree with making their texts legally available based on this license.