In the first question we read and talked about the difficulty of finding a legitimate basis for labeling the behavior of others as "abnormal" We also pointed out in lecture that this process bears a significant ethical burden as well. There can be a lot of stigma, prejudice, loss of self esteem and real harm directed toward a person who is labeled as "having a mental illness"

Question?

Please discuss for this question about U.S. attitudes toward mental illness as it relates to the different etiological models of pathology. Please discuss the following issue:

In your experience how is mental illness seen in today's American Culture. How do the various models of etiology affect these attitudes? Do people generally more or less understand and accept people with problems if they believe mental illness comes from problems in a person's biology, thinking, past learning experiences or current/past cultural settings?