Overcoming discrimination: social responsibility towards people with mental illness

The reduction of stigma and discrimination attached to mental ill­ness has become a priority concern for mental health policy in Sri Lanka. The main objective of this paper is to examine where the responsibility to combat discrimination lies in different situations where people with mental illness are being discriminated against. The paper argues that people with mental illness have been excluded from mainstream society not because of problems with those who have the illness but because of prejudicial attitudes that society holds toward them and because of the nonavailability of social arrangements that facilitate their community living.

Sri Lanka Journal of Advanced Social Studies, 2013; Vol 3(2); Page 97-113