ABSTRACT
Very few studies report on practical methods that can be adopted to combat stigmatised attitudes. However, based on a review of the literature, three approaches to addressing public stigma have emerged: education, contact and advocacy. Education replaces stigma with accurate conceptions about the disorders. However, studies demonstrate that, beyond general education, positive attitudes are enhanced more specifically with mental health education which disconfirms stereotypes with accurate conceptions and evidence-based insights. Promotion of contact challenges public attitudes about mental illness through direct interactions with persons who have these disorders. Contact decreases negative attitudes through cognitive individuation, especially when the contact is auspicious – personal, intensive, extensive, equal, voluntary and within a meaningful, supportive context. Advocacy seeks to suppress stigmatising attitudes of mental illness and behaviours that promote these attitudes. The effectiveness of organised awareness activities in combating the stigma of mental illness has been recognised including initiatives such as: World Mental Health Day, Mental Health Awareness Week, becoming a “stigma-buster”, being part of a pressure group that highlights the sufferings persons with mental illness face, with deprivation of their basic citizenship rights, and facilitation of consumer movements from local groups to national alliances for mental health that would collaborate with national professional bodies.
