Doctoral student University of Houston Houston, Texas, United States
Overview: Perceptions can be targeted to shift how an individual thinks about their bipolar disorder. If individuals with bipolar disorder are exposed to adaptive illness perceptions and positive role models, perhaps they will have more choices than accepting and internalizing societal stigma.Proposal text: Adapting illness perceptions can increase personal recovery for individuals with bipolar disorder (Yanos et al., 2020). One of the ways bipolar disorder can be damaging to individuals is through self-stigma. Negative stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination are easily absorbed because typically, this is the only information available to diagnosed individuals (Watson & Corrigan, 2007). By countering stigma early on with realistic and adaptive illness information, individuals’ perceptions of their illness can be more balanced and less likely to be based on stigma (Drapalski et al., 2021). A gap exists in the mental health care system for informing consumers about accurate and adaptive illness perceptions. Newly diagnosed and hospitalized individuals are often given negative expectations for poor life outcomes by mental health professionals, society perpetuates harmful stigma about them, and they develop negative illness identities that include engulfment or rejection of their illness (Oris et al., 2016; Yanos et al., 2020). This way of treating individuals with bipolar disorder is counterproductive and needs to change. Research needs to focus on identifying the illness perceptions which shape self-stigma (Dodd et al., 2017; Mak et al., 2014). It can also concentrate on informing interventions to modify maladaptive illness perceptions and align them with adaptive perceptions that accurately depict this disorder (Averous et al., 2021). The meanings individuals attach to their bipolar illness are likely to become determinants of their response to themselves, their illness, and their interpersonal relationships. Perceptions can be targeted to shift how an individual thinks about their bipolar disorder, which may lead them to ignore or discount the public stigma they may be encouraged to internalize. Due to stigma, many cultures receive misinformation, miscommunicate, and/or simply do not talk about mental illness. Psychoeducation about the illness (Morgan et al., 2018) can replace the lack of discussion or understanding about bipolar disorder that is endemic across cultures. Information that is hopeful, recovery-oriented, and empowering is critical to diverting public stigma and reducing self-stigma. Further, family members, friends, employers, and mental health professionals can also reduce stigma through exposure to positive role models and adaptive illness perceptions. Despite the evidence supporting that bipolar illness can have difficult, disruptive, and disabling symptoms (Cassidy & Erdal, 2020), it is critical that the public understand that recovering, managing, and minimizing the illness is possible (Corrigan, 2016). It is important to separate the difficult symptoms of this illness from the person experiencing them. A primary problem with stigma is that it assigns blame and negative attributions to the person with a bipolar condition (Casados, 2017). Recognition of who an individual is and what the symptoms of bipolar disorder mean as symptoms, not as a personal identity, can be increased with psychoeducation depicting this disease accurately, with the expectation of recovery, and a life unlimited by a manageable disease (Drapalski et al., 2021). Without this information being expressed and taught, the only forseeable alternative for understanding this illness is stigma. This outcome is unacceptable and research and education must pursue changing it.
Learning Objectives:
Identify and describe illness perceptions and their relationship to illness identity and self-stigma for individuals with bipolar disorder.
Teach others how to separate symptoms that happen to an individual from the individual with bipolar disorder as a pathway to reduce public and self-stigma.
Describe and demonstrate how and why to develop stigma reduction programs that include psychoeducation and peer specialist role models for individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder, their family, friends, employers, and mental health professionals in order to accurately depict the disorder and provide adaptive illness perceptions that counter societal stigma.