The Blog.

“What’s going on? In speaking to a number of non-white colleagues, a theme presented around cultural stigma. A good friend and fellow social worker explained: “Stigma is a systemic problem in African communities; even highly educated professionals find it is easier to believe a loved one is possessed or lazy in order to escape socially constructed responsibilities like getting married and having children. Anything but accept the shame of a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Also, psycho-education often doesn’t work. How can you educate people when they refuse to believe schizophrenia even exists?”