Critical Review

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Apr 3, 2024

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Hailee Wunderli 1 Dr. Bernice Olivas English 2010 3 March 2020 Critical Review Smith, Rachel A., and Amanda Applegate. “Mental Health Stigma and Communication and Their Intersections with Education.” Communication Education, vol. 67, no. 3, July 2018, pp. 382–393. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/03634523.2018.1465988. http://search.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu:2048/login.aspx? direct=true&db=asn&AN=129717156&site=ehost-live In the article titled, “Mental Health Stigma and Communication and Their Interactions with Education” written by Rachel Smith and Amanda Applegate, the topic of mental health and the stigma surrounding it is deeply discussed. Smith and Applegate start by discussing how many people will experience mental health issues in their lives and the physical toll it will have on those people. This then transforms into the discussion of the stigma mental health has and how it badly affects those who are being seen as less able due to their mental status. Continuing, Smith, and Applegate define what mental health issues intel. There are a few examples talked about and how a large percentage of college students possess these illnesses. It goes into a topic of how one can get these imbalances which come from many different factors. These include biological, social, all the way to environmental. With these mental issues, there are many barriers for those in school. It is talked about how other students may look down and use negative terms for their classmates, and even the child’s parents' views and thoughts. The peers of the student who may be having problems deeply change the way the student may think of themselves. Along with students, teachers tend to also look down at those who they are teaching with mental health problems. They look to them as troublesome with bad behaviors. These are talked about to show

2 what a hard time someone with mental imbalances may encounter. At the end of the article, Smith and Applegate discuss the ways that we could use to try to end the stigma. To which communication is very important and must be utilized. I enjoyed that Smith and Applegate touched on the topic of how teachers can have such an effect on their students with mental health issues. These students can be seen as a hassle due to their social problems, and this is an issue that must be discussed. Other writers who have talked about this wrote in “Reexamining the relationship between academic achievement and social behavior. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions”. These writers, Algozzine, B., Wang, C., & Violette, A. S., shared the following, “Teachers who rate students as having more problematic behaviors also provide students lower ratings in academic competence. However, longitudinal studies in which someone other than the teacher completes the ratings find no causal relationship between social skills and academics” (Algozzine, et al., 2011). This is an important topic to me because many students are struggling in school due to their mental state. Even if someone were to have a high IQ and understood the teachings, they still may be looked down on because they are struggling mentally. I believe that every student should be treated the same. Especially those who are having problems with mental health. Something that I wish was talked more about in the article is the lack of people seeking help for themselves. Occasionally, Smith and Applegate would say how there were those not getting help, but there were no in-depth discussions as to why. In the beginning, it was said that, “...One reason is that some physical problems are left unattended...suggesting that people with mental disorders pull away from care” (Smith, 2018). Because it was not talked about a lot, I sought some words from other writers. On this same topic, many other writers have talked about the reasons behind people not seeking help. One of the most common barriers to seeking help for a psychological disorder among young adult populations is stigma (Eisenberg, Downs, Golberstein, & Zivin, 2009). For example, individuals who seek treatment for a mental disorder

3 are deemed more “emotionally unstable, less interesting, and less confident” than persons seeking treatment for a physical ailment (Vogel, Wade, & Ascheman, 2009, p. 301). However, self stigma or the internalized public stigma, can lead individuals to not try to seek care due to shame of being labeled as having a mental illness (Corrigan, Druss, & Perlick, 2014; Vogel, Wade, & Haake, 2006). I think that this should be talked about a lot more. Many people are being looked down on because of something they cannot control. If you are already struggling with your self worth and then they are being told that you are less of a person, you would keep your struggles to yourself. Both public and self stigma introduce barriers toward seeking help, and reducing both types of stigma may improve mental health. I think that the topic of mental health stigma should be talked about a lot more. With the growth of social media and the mental toll that it takes, we should be spreading the information of stigma and how normal it is for people to have mental health issues.

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4 Cited Works Corrigan, P. W., Druss, B. G., & Perlick, D. A. (2014). The impact of mental illness stigma on seeking and participating in mental health care. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 15, 37–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100614531398 Eisenberg, D., Downs, M. F., Golberstein, E., & Zivin, K. (2009). Stigma and help seeking for mental health among college students. Medical Care Research and Review, 66, 522–541. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077558709335173 Vogel, D. L., Wade, N. G., & Ascheman, P. L. (2009). Measuring perceptions of stigmatization by others for seeking psychological help: Reliability and validity of a new stigma scale with college students. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 56, 301–308. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014903 Vogel, D. L., Wade, N. G., & Haake, S. (2006). Measuring the self-stigma associated with seeking psychological help. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53, 325–337. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.3.325

Critical Review

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