Many mentally ill people are the victims of stigma, which leads to additional suffering and humiliation. Negative stereotypes and prejudicial attitudes against them are often reinforced by their media representation as unpredictable, violent and dangerous. Hence the importance of the study of stigma as an explanatory construct of much that transpires in the management of the mentally ill in our societies.


This book describes the experience of stigmatization at the level of the individual, and seeks to measure stigma and discrimination from the following perspectives: Self...

Contemporary Topics in Women's Mental Health: Global Perspectives in a Changing Society considers both the mental health and psychiatric disorders of women in relation to global social change. The book addresses the current themes in psychiatric disorders among women: reproduction and mental health, service delivery and ethics, impact of violence, disasters and migration, women's mental health promotion and social policy, and concludes each section with a commentary discussing important themes emerging from each chapter. Psychiatrists, sociologists and students of women's studies will...

The first book in a new series from the World Psychiatric Association, Schizophrenia: current science and clinical practice presents recent information on the diagnosis, neurobiological foundations, and management of schizophrenia. It evaluates the findings obtained with modern techniques like magnetic resonance imaging, genetics and network analyses. The book reviews the importance of neurocognitive functioning in schizophrenia and its predictive value for functional capacity. It covers the key areas of early recognition, prevention, rehabilitation and stigma. There is also a critical...

There are wide inconsistencies between, and even within, countries in how community-orientated care is defined and interpreted. The analysis presented in this book take as a starting point an evidence-based balanced care model in which services are provided in community settings close to the populations served, with hospital stays being reduced as far as possible, usually located in acute wards in general hospitals. The surprising conclusion from the research is that the same problems arise in all countries, regardless of resource status, and thus the recommendations of this book apply to...