Correspondence

Abstract

Dear Editor, Thank you for letting us see the letter by P. Corrigan and M. Angermeier. We think that the guidance on how to combat stigmatization of psychiatry and psychiatrists 1 should be seen within the context of WPA activities concerning stigma. The WPA has implemented the world's largest international collaborative project against the stigma of mental illness 2, a project which generated anti-stigma action in 18 countries of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. Groups that have participated in this project continue to work together and see the reduction of stigma of mental illness and the stigmatization of people who suffer from them as their goal. The WPA, convinced of the importance of this work, also created a scientific section dealing with stigma and sponsored four major conferences (in Leipzig, Queenstown, Istanbul and London) that brought together researchers, members of user and carer organizations, health decision makers and practitioners of medicine and psychiatry. WPA's programs resulted in a large number of publications dealing with various aspects of stigma and its reduction. WPA's congresses over the past two decades regularly included symposia and other events dealing with stigma and ways of reducing it. It was to complement these activities that the WPA included a project dealing with the stigma of psychiatry in its Action Plan 2008–2011 and consequently created a Task Force that was requested to produce guidelines that might help in reducing the stigma that marks psychiatry and psychiatrists. Reducing that emanation of the stigma of mental illness to psychiatry as a profession and a service would increase the interest of students of health professions in psychiatry and improve the prestige of the profession, as P. Corrigan and M. Angermeier say, but would — more importantly — also reduce the reluctance of people with mental health problems to seek help from psychiatric services and significantly contribute to the potential of psychiatrists and other mental health specialists to advocate the needs of people with mental illness and to seek a higher priority for mental health programs in national health plans. Both P. Corrigan and M. Angermeier have helped WPA in its fight to reduce the stigma of mental illness and its consequences in the past. We hope that WPA can count on their continued collaboration in all of its anti-stigma activities, including those that might improve the image of psychiatry and the psychiatrists.