Wellness rhetoric and stigmatisation of health care professionals with mental disorders

Abstract

First, Tackett suggests that ‘addressing students’ prejudice against mental illness might make them more open to and accepting of mental illness’ after noting that Schwenk et al. revealed that ‘prejudice against care seeking is often worst among the students and physicians with severe mental illness’. This is a problematic interpretation of Schwenk et al.’s data. Schwenk et al.’s papers suggest that trainees with more severe symptoms of depression think that ‘telling a counsellor I am depressed would be risky’ and would avoid seeking treatment ‘due to concerns about confidentiality’. This is quite understandable because experimental evidence suggests that a history of receiving psychological counselling makes residency programmes view applicants less favorably and because the treatments offered to these trainees are often not confidential. Trainees with mental disorders do not have a ‘prejudice’ against care seeking just for being more aware of these facts. Terms like prejudice and discrimination are also more commonly used to describe beliefs or behaviours enacted by more powerful groups or individuals against those who are less powerful.