Study of Stigmatization of People with Mental Illnesses among Young People

The subject of the study is the problem of stigmatization of people with mental illnesses. Currently, the problem of stigmatization of people with mental illnesses reaches a fairly high level. First of all, this tendency is expressed in a dismissive, and sometimes even contemptuous attitude towards neurodifferent individuals associated with fears, fears and prejudices regarding the behavior of persons with an established mental diagnosis. We are talking about attributing to mentally ill people the ability and willingness to commit various crimes, including serious ones, and vice versa, society often assigns to mentally healthy criminals the presence of a mental disorder that they did not have. The novelty of the study lies in a two-way process that aggravates the process of stigmatization: on the one hand, modern medicine allows more accurately diagnosing various mental disorders and selecting adequate treatment so that the life of an individual does not differ or almost does not differ from a person who does not suffer from similar disorders. On the other hand, the same modern world, the pace of life and the level of stress provokes the appearance and development of mental disorders, as evidenced by both twenty-year-old and modern studies. The main conclusions based on the results of the study in this paper: there is a fairly high level of interest in the student society to the topic of mental health in general, a relatively loyal attitude towards neurodifferent individuals. For people who treat mentally ill people less loyally, the main motive for stigmatization is fear, fear due to the "unpredictability" of the behavior of people with severe mental disorders. It is also important to note that a significant part of the respondents claim that in Russia the level of mental education, the quality of medical care and the level of support for people with mental illnesses, measures aimed at integrating such people into society are not of sufficient quality.

stigmatization, mental health, sociological research, Foucault, Irving Hoffman, deviant behavior, students, questioning, stereotype, Mass culture