Doctor Daniel Pine suggests that stigma often tends to develop in areas where our knowledge is lacking. Research advances should, therefore, reduce stigma.

Well, there has been a long history of stigma around mental disorders and one of the reasons that I enjoy the opportunities to talk to people such as yourself is that it gives us the opportunity to try to do something about stigma because I think that is clearly one of the biggest hurdles both to research advances on the one hand, but also for people getting help with problems that they confront in their daily life. We know a fair amount about stigma in a lot of different areas and stigma often tends to develop in areas where our knowledge is not that great. So, I think without question, that has been a factor in terms of mental illnesses. The fact that we have known so little in some ways makes it easier for stigma to develop. Conversely, I think one of the really important things about developing our understanding about mental illnesses and really coming to view mental illnesses as brain disorders is that as that information becomes better known, the hope is that stigma is going to go down and that is going to both facilitate research advances, but it is also going to make it easier for people when they recognize that they have a problem to come forth and get the treatment that they need.

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