Initiative aims to ease stigma of mental illness

SAMHSA is the latest agency to focus public awareness on the value of mental health services.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. June 28, 2004.

Jen graduated with honors from Boston University. Her accomplishment was especially noteworthy because several years earlier she almost didn't graduate from high school because of a battle with major depression.

Hers is just one of many stories incorporated into a new campaign of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, designed to undercut the stigma of mental illness.

There are other stories: Dawn, a social worker with a history of drug and alcohol abuse who has been sober for five years; and Jeffery, a Vietnam veteran who started hearing voices when he was 13 and has tried to kill himself nine times.

"Recovery is possible, and there is no shame in having a brain disease," Jeffrey wrote.

His statement sums up SAMHSA's message, and the agency plans to communicate it through its Elimination of Barriers Initiative. This initiative follows on the heels of the National Institute of Mental Health's Real Men, Real Depression campaign.

SAMHSA officials hope the project will make mental illness seem more like something that afflicts a neighbor rather than the unwashed stranger walking down the street.

The central points are that mental illness is common; treatment is available; and recovery is expected. The agency has committed $1.7 million annually for the next three years to underwrite paid advertising, health fairs and music festivals as well as the establishment of speakers' bureaus in eight states. After the pilot testing, what works will be taken nationally.