ABSTRACT
The problem of social and personal stigma, which affects people with mental disorders, especially schizophrenics, is a variable of considerable importance in the treatment of schizophrenia, that is even able to influence its outcome. The term stigma was used in ancient Greece to indicate a mark, consisting of a tattoo, that permitted the identification of a slave, who in ancient times was, more often than not, an enemy captured in battle. The processes implicated in the phenomena of stigma are complex and involve the cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and relational spheres. Stigmatization, from the evolutionary point of view, has deep roots linked to biological phylogeny and cultural ontogenesis. Stigma is not only linked to mental illness, but applies to those who, rightly or wrongly, are identified, in a given social or historical context, as different and, therefore, able to disturb the prevailing order.
