At least one in four Canadians will experience some form of
mental illness during their lifetime, according to medical
experts, and almost all of us will be affected by it through
family, friends or colleagues. Yet despite the proximity and
ubiquity of mental illness, people in our society with a
diagnosed mental health problem are frequently stigmatized.
Camillo Zacchia, senior adviser for the mental health education
office at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute in
Montreal, says this is due in part to "the nature of human
beings and their tendency to form groups. It protects us from
predators but it also makes us feel superior and take an
antagonistic approach to others." This negativity frequently
manifests itself as hostility toward people perceived to be
different. In the past, says Zacchia, when we thought of mental
illness, "we thought first of the need to separate people and
put them in asylums to give them what they needed. Then, they
were not like us anymore. "Segregation is the root of m