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Paul B's picture

What 'destigmatizes' illness...?

Submitted by Paul B on Mon, 09/22/2008 - 12:41pm.

I feel as though society stigmatizes cancer and AIDS because no one completely understands the complexities of these illnesses. Instead, people just associate them with "devious" behavior - like linking AIDS with unprotected sex or syringe sharing. If people were to see AIDS as a sydrome and not as its metaphores, then I think the stigma would vanish...

 

...So while I now think that mental health/illness is more complicated than the illness model, my original point was that if people saw mental illness as an illness and not as weak character or bad behavior or any other associations, the the stigmas would go away.

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