
Many of my peers are uneducated on the effects of mental illnesses and are unaware of the treatment options. It does not help that talking about peoples mental illnesses is treated as a taboo topic also. That's why I think that people should be educated at a young age to make increase knowledge and hopefully in a parallel to knowledge increase treatment. I am interested in this topic because I found that once I learned someone had a mental illness I instantly had so many questions about it and I realized that I had a general lack of knowledge. I feel that people should be educated on this because it is something that majorly effects people's lives, and even if you don't have a mental illness knowing how it affects others I think is necessary. The main reason that I'm writing this however is because of my friend Jake Eyering. He was a close friend of mine and last semester he shot himself in the head ending his life. It seemed so out of place for such a happy guy. Later I learned that he had bi-polar depression and his treatment wasn't working. I feel like if the topic of mental illnesses and depression wasn't so taboo he could have talked to more people about his bi polar depression and tried different treatment options. I feel like he would be alive today.

This sources central claim is that views about mental illness negatively affect people with mental illnesses. It says that current views can lead to negative actions and prejudice towards mental illness patients as well as mental illness patients having developing negative view of themselves. It can also lead to people denying their mental illness to avoid stigma. The article also talks about ways stigma can be stopped through protest, education and contact.

The major value to take away from this article is that stigma towards mental illness patients is a problem that needs to be fixed through protest, education and contact. Stigma leads to mental illness patients having to deal with their illness as well as negative views projected upon them as well.

The authors are all involved in departments of psychiatry and have firsthand knowledge of studies of people with mental illness. One of the authors is even the head of a company for stigma research. This leads me to believe that they are credible and ethical in the way this article was written.

The central claim of this article is that stigma faced in mental illness patients in the beginning of treatment causes them to drop out of the treatment. This is shown through a study conducted by them dealing with stigma faced in the first three months of receiving treatment for their mental illness.

The major value this article tries to show is that stigma not only affects people by making them avoid treatment, that it also affects people who seek treatment. It can cause people refuse to continue treatment for their depression because of the negative backlash about their treatment. The views on depression and treatment towards it as a illness need to be changed to allow people to get the treatment they need.

All the authors of this source have masters or PhD's. This makes them credible in that they are educated. As well as the fact that this is in "The American Journal of Psychiatry" These authors where educated enough to be allowed to have their experiment in this book as well as citing many sources and using commonly accepted experiment methods.

The main claim of this article is that stigma for patients of mental illness have many negative effects mainly including the lack of treatment. It also argues that a main sources of the stigmatization of mental illness patients is from the media. It then suggests different ways to reduce stigma.

The major value and interests of this article is the reducing of stigmatization of mental illness patients. It suggests three main ways of doing this: protest, contact and education. It also calls upon the media to help clear some of the rumors about mental illnesses and help the general public learn about them.

This source was written by a person with a bachelor's of medicine and member of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He is educated in this field and is writing for "The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry." The source that he is writing for and the qualifications he has lead me to believe the source is credible.


This research question is arguable because many people could see the education of kids on mental illnesses as a waste of time and resources, while other could see it as necessary and useful to a kids knowledge. All of my sources agree upon the fact that a negative view of people with mental illnesses exist. They also agree that something needs to be done about it and suggest similar ways of fixing the issue. After reading all these articles I feel that the issue I have is much larger and more discussed then I previously thought. I might need to make my research question more about a specific solution to make it something that hasn't been discussed before.
