Mental Health Stigma and the Cult of Positivity
today we’re at a crossroads in our
cultural relationship with mental health
all of us have a unique opportunity to
engage with others
with authenticity and in a way that
reduces
mental health stigma and supports
well-being
we’ve come a really long way as a
culture in terms of normalizing
help seeking for mental health concerns
but
worry about the perception of others
continues to be
one of the most important reasons why
individuals who need help don’t get it
what we know is that stigma is one of
the most frequently reported barriers to
treatment initiation
for all kinds of mental health and
substance use concerns
no matter who we ask or how we ask them
it comes up over and
over again that therapy is good for
other people for troubled people for
damaged people but not for me personally
and it becomes a barrier to treatment
seeking
for all kinds of mental health concerns
internalized stigma that is believing at
least on some level
that the stories that we tell ourselves
about a marginalized group
are true impacts how we think about
ourselves
and how we think about our mental health
mental health stigma
or the perception that people who
struggle with mental health concerns
or who seek mental health help are crazy
bad or dangerous is really problematic
the stigma is pervasive in our culture
and it shows up in how we talk about
mental health
phrases like he’s crazy or that’s crazy
it shows up in how the media talks about
mental illness
when there’s a dangerous gunman out on
the loose our immediate thought is that
he must be crazy
people who are out of control or who
make poor decisions are
often referred to as crazy anyone who’s
a threat to the public
in the media their mental health comes
up
the ways that we interact with one
another both in person
and on social media are influenced both
by mental health stigma
and in the internalized stigma we hold
for ourselves
imagining that we are part of this
marginalized group
so when someone begins to think about
mental health treatment to do so
they need to associate themselves with
people in a stigmatized category
that i could be not that far away from
all those so-called crazy people in the
media or on social media
this is one of the biggest barriers to
treatment seeking
a huge part of this evolves on social
media
how we present ourselves on social media
and how we talk about mental health and
social media
in my own research on expectations about
psychotherapy
i asked people what they thought about
counseling what they sought from
counseling
and over and over again they say they
want to learn more about what’s normal
in mental health
and worry about whether or not they and
their behavior
are normal this is one of the indicators
of how pervasive
internalized stigma is that even
individuals who have already made the
decision to enter into therapy
worry that i or their therapist or
people around them
will think that there’s something wrong
with them
part of this is a problem in language we
use the same words to talk about
someone who is severely mentally ill
and someone who experiences a transient
mild sort of thing this
mis-specification in language is really
problematic
right if we said respiratory distress
for
everything from a little mild exercise
induced asthma
to someone who’s literally on a
ventilator in a hospital
it would create a lot of confusion
around the term respiratory distress
that’s essentially what we’ve done with
mental illness or
mental health because of
misspecification
we’ve created a lack of clarity this
doesn’t work for us
and leads to the minimization and
miscategorization of mental health
concerns
because once again when we have
internalized stigma
we are hesitant to associate ourselves
with a marginalized group
and so we see everything from that
little bit of anxiety or that little bit
of depression we
experience as a normal part of life
is associated with what we see in the
media
as crazy or disturbed all of this taken
together is internalized stigma
we begin to identify with marginalized
groups when we’re struggling with our
mental health
and that’s scary there’s a natural
attempt to push that away
and to make distinctions between us and
the marginalized group
to say we’re somehow different or better
recently experts have identified stigma
promoting behaviors and language
across social media platforms one
insidious and well-meaning way that
stigma is promoted through social media
is in pressure to be positive or to look
on the bright side
something that people have called toxic
positivity or
the cult of positivity it perpetuates
this idea that we should be
mentally tough enough to overcome any
difficulty we have
so that we can create separation between
us
and those members of the marginalized
and stigmatized group
the dark side of the good vibes only
trend
is toxic positivity toxic positivity is
the excessive and ineffective over
generalization
of a happy and optimistic state that
results
in the minimization and invalidation of
the authentic
human emotional experience
now i’m not possible pessimistic quite
the opposite actually
but when positivity is used to cover up
minimize or deny experiences
it’s really unhealthy for us and worse
promotes stigmatizing language and
behavior
on popular social media platforms this
emerges in our content
things like no bad vibes and memes
related to
positivity it evolves in our responses
to others
where there’s a failure to acknowledge
problems or difficulties
and instead encourage people to look on
the bright side
or buck up it also evolves in the way
that we use gas lighting
and minimization in really well-meaning
ways
but things like saying first world
problems or
other ways of minimizing difficulty
the very nature of mental illness and
mental health concerns is that you can’t
think your way out of it
on some level most people who struggle
with their mental health
are aware that what they’re doing isn’t
healthy
but the very core of mental illness
is that you can’t think your way out of
it you can’t reason your way out of it
and so as much as we have evolved as a
society in terms of how we think about
mental health
there’s this moral or cognitive failing
narrative
that’s alive and well and perpetuated in
the cult of positivity on social media
this cultural positivity is really
problematic for us because it leads to
dismissing emotions
feeling guilty for having negative
emotions and it minimizes experience
gaslights difficult experiences and
leads to shame and judgment
that we internalize as stigma and what
that does is it reinforces a shame and
blame
cycle that contributes to the idea that
if people just tried
hard enough mental illness would be gone
taking together all of this contributes
to stigma around mental health
and hope seeking for mental health
concerns
we know now that this is particularly
damaging to teens and young adults
and so there’s been a lot of emphasis on
breaking the stigma
to break the stigma surrounding mental
health help seeking behavior
we need to address all the ways in which
stigma emerges
including those that are well-meaning by
openly addressing the cult of positivity
we can reduce stigma
and promote healthy behaviors related to
mental health
all right so how do you know you’re
doing it so you know you’re doing it
if you find yourself hiding your true
feelings and creating a social media
self
we’ve often heard about that idea that
what we present on social media is the
polished or beautiful version
of ourselves and feeling
this sense of having to do that having
to hide true feelings
because people would judge or dislike
you
for being real you’re doing it
you’re also doing call to positivity
when you feel shame or guilt for having
feelings
or minimizing your own or other people’s
experience with feel-good quotes
now i know it’s meant to be
inspirational but sometimes that feels
like minimizing and it’s really
problematic
another way in which cultural positivity
emerges in well-meaning ways
is trying to give other people
perspective like
it could be worse or look on the bright
side or
it’s a first world problem instead of
validating the authenticity of the
experience
the last big tip off that you’re engaged
in the cult of positivity
is that you’re shaming yourself or other
people for not being able to
shake it off or get over a disturbance
so how can you be a positive support
because i think that’s the pathway
becoming a positive support on social
media and in your interactions with
other humans
is one way that we can all contribute in
a meaningful way
to the reduction of mental health stigma
first thing it starts with yourself
empathy and authenticity with yourself
really embracing all of the feelings
that are part of an authentic human
experience and that includes
some difficult feeling sometimes
taking that authenticity then into the
people that you love
being your real self and experiencing a
range of human emotions around the
people that you care about
next extend that into how you offer
acceptance and validation for others
so acceptance and validation is finding
the kernel of truth in what people say
or finding a way to identify the core
emotional experience
we don’t have to agree that everyone is
having the worst day ever
and we don’t have to become pessimistic
but we need to validate
the authenticity of an emotional
experience if something is
struggling and in it they’re in it
whether you think it’s real or not and
it’s really critical to validate
and accept that emotional experience
regardless of where it came from
finally figuring out ways to offer
support to help your friends and family
to find their own solution
when we accept and validate other people
it helps them to feel empowered
and we can offer the opportunity to
stand with people
as they go through their struggles or to
support them as they build their own
solutions
all of these things come from a place of
authenticity
and connection and when we deal with
each other
with authenticity with connection and
with support
we can make our important contribution
to reducing mental health stigma
and creating a society that validates
emotional experiences
whatever they are thank you