Although the public understands that many factors influence who ends up crazy, terrified or miserable, studies consistently find that they place much more emphasis on adverse life events than on chemical imbalances or genetics. Biological psychiatry, enthusiastically supported by the pharmaceutical industry, insists on trying to educate the public that they are wrong. This “mental illness is an illness like any other” approach to destigmatisation ignores the large body of research evidence that biogenetic explanations actually fuel fear and prejudice. If future destigmatisation programs are to be evidence-based and therefore effective, they will need to avoid illness-type explanations and labels and focus instead on increasing contact with the people against whom the prejudice is targeted and on highlighting the social causes of their difficulties. This might create funding challenges for programs dependent on drug company money.
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