People with physical illness are often open about discussing their ailments with family, friends, and even sometimes with virtual strangers.

But mental illness is often a deep and sometimes shameful secret.

People with serious mental illness are feared or even pitied and can face discrimination in nearly every aspect of their lives, from finding

jobs to finding housing, to getting adequate medical care.

Where does this stigma come from and why is it so pervasive?

How does stigma affect the lives of people with mental illness and what does the research

say about how to fight it?

Has the new openness with which some celebrities

discuss their mental health struggles made a difference in reducing stigma? Is mental illness

less stigmatized than it used to be or is stigma as pervasive as ever? Welcome to speaking of

psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association

that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life.

I'm Kim Mills.

Our guest today is Dr. Patrick Corrigan, a distinguished professor of psychology at the Illinois

Institute of Technology.

Dr. Corrigan has spent decades studying stigma and mental

health and developing anti-stigma intervention programs. He is the editor of APA's journal Stigma

and Health and has written more than 400 peer-reviewed articles and authored or edited 15 books.

He's also written about living with mental illness himself, and he's part of the

team that developed the honest, open, proud series of anti-stigma programs, which we'll talk about with him

today. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Corrigan. Thank you for having me. You've been studying

mental health stigma for decades. How pervasive is it and what does the research say about the extent to which people with mental

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