The impact of stigma on the well-being of people diagnosed with mental illness: why stigma persists and why it remains consequential

The stigma surrounding mental illness remains and has, in some instances, grown over time, despite the public's general acceptance of mental illness as a biomedical condition. This chapter explores two questions that continue to puzzle social scientists and thwart easy explanations: why the stigma of mental illness persists and why the negative consequences of stigma are so difficult to eliminate. It discusses how and why the mental illness label remains salient across situations, how the category of mental illness has expanded and assumed new dimensions, and how perceptions of violence continue to ungird much of the stigma surrounding behavioral problems. It also discusses the limited toolkit available to those wishing to cope with stigma's aftermath. The stigma surrounding mental illness persists and remains consequential because of a variety of social, cultural, and structural factors, not all of which have progressed over time.