The conception of mental illness has a narrower focus than the western view. While the notion of ‘were’ merely refers to the manifestation of mental disorder, mental illness in the west involves minor stages of mental problems. This paper attempts to examine the Yoruba concept of mental illness. It is assumed that the Yoruba view of mental illness is narrower. ‘Were’ defines mental illness from...

OBJECTIVES The culture of stigma associated with mental illness is particularly intense when persons who are normally victims of that stigmatization (mentally ill persons and their family members) themselves act negatively toward others whom they associate with mental illness. We attempt to determine the extent of this internalization and assimilation of stigmatizing attitudes, cognitions, and ...

NCHSR is partially funded by the Australian Department of Health and Ageing. © 2010 National Centre in HIV Social Research, The University of New South Wales Photographs on pages 1, 3 and 4 copyright iStockphoto What we see depends mainly on what we look for, or so John Lubbock (1834– 1913), a noted anthropologist, once said. In the field of HIV research and care what we don’t look for, we miss...

Stigma against mental illness is probably as old as the civilization itself. There are references to discrimination on the basis of mental illness in almost all the ancient books of law. In the well known Indian classic "Laws of Manu" there are references to insane persons (UNMATTA) in the chapters related to marriage, inheritance, feast after death, rules regarding contract and appearance as a...

Parenting and Mental illness Popular conceptions of motherhood tend to exclude considerations of mental illness; nevertheless, women with mental illness do become pregnant and care for their children, a finding consistent across major diagnostic groups. Sixty-seven percent of women meeting criteria for severe and persistent mental illness over a 12-month period are mothers (Hinden et al., 2005)...

BACKGROUND People who suffer from mental illness, the professionals who treat them, and indeed the actual concept of mental illness are all stigmatised in public perception and often receive very negative publicity. This paper looks at Iraq, which has a population of 30 million who are mainly Moslem. Mental health services and professionals have historically been sparse in Iraq with 1 psychiatr...

Archival data from a cross-sectional survey of two cohorts of community residing New Zealand adults (n = 157; n = 141) was analysed to examine social attitudes towards people with mental illness in a historical period associated with the establishment of a community mental health facility. Participants completed the Opinions about Mental Illness (OMI; Cohen & Struening, 1959), and the Comfort i...

Results: results showed that (1) nursing students were found to have positive attitudes towards mental illness in four scales, (2) no significant differences were found between students’ attitudes towards mental illness and demographics, (3) there was a significant difference in attitudes towards the mental illness between students who have previous contact with mental patients and those who di...

The nature of mental illness has been the subject of passionate discussion throughout history. In ancient Greece Plato,1,2 promoting a mentalist definition of mental illness, was the first to coin the term “mental health,” which was conceived as reason aided by temper and ruling over passion. At around the same time, Hippocrates,3 taking a more physicalist approach, defined different mental con...

Based on the Mental Health Continuum Short Form administered in the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health (CCHS-MH), the percentages of Canadians aged 15 or older classified as having flourishing, moderate or languishing mental health were 76.9%, 21.6% and 1.5%, respectively. Compared with estimates for other countries, a higher percentage of Canadians were flourishing. In accor...