Every year, the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program gathers together some of the leading policy makers, professionals, and advocates in mental health to discuss a given topic. Led by Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, the program features panel discussions and then working groups to discuss and craft future policy recommendations. This year’s focus of the 28th annual symposium was on the same topic as it was during the first symposium — stigma in mental health.

As Mrs. Carter noted, many things have changed in the intervening 27 years. She noted they didn’t even have a person living with mental illness attend the first symposium, and while the impact of stigma has diminished somewhat, it remains an ongoing problem. She believes social inclusion is “an important anecdote to stigma,” a sentiment that I couldn’t agree more with.

Keynotes were presented by Elyn Saks, a law professor at the University of Southern California, who talked about her own experiences with discrimination and prejudice; and Graham Thornicroft, Ph.D., a professor of Community Psychiatry at King’s College London, who talked about what we mean by stigma and mental illness, and its impact on society.

Here’s a brief synopsis…

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