Freud’s Perspective on Women By Kendra Cherry
Cherry disects Freud’s sexist attitudes towards women. He thought that women were inferior beings and possessed “penis envy”. This idea was that young girls get upset with their mothers because they are not men and thus are not as powerful. He thought that this was one of his greatest discoveries along with the Oedipal complex. Many of Freud’s theories about women came from his treatment of Hysteria. He came to the decision that women’s hysteria came from their repression of sexual desire. This was one of the first acknowledgements of women’s sexual desire. However, this acknowledgement does not cancel out the fact that Freud was antifeminist and against women’s liberation. Nevertheless, he conducted these studies to attempt to understand them. He is famous quoted (and the play begins with the quote) “The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is ‘What does a woman want?'”
Public Attitudes Towards Persons With Mental Illness By Andrew B. Borinstein
Before the late 1960s and early 1970s, issues of mental health were considered a private matter and not something for the public to be concerned with. Moving foward, mental health became not as well hidden and finally got to recieve the help and attention it deserved. Because of a huge amount of deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, homelessness began to spring up all over the country like never before. This made everyday American face the scary side of mental illness, the kind that is untreated and can sometimes to dangerous when it is left to its own devices. A more beneficent push for mental illness was the creation of Psychology Today that allowed for the desmistification of mental illness by openly disucssing such problems. By the end of the 1980s, mental health was much more of a public conversation and so many more people could go see a therapist or go on medication without the stigma.
The stigma of mental disorders: A millennia‐long history of social exclusion and prejudices By Wulf Rössler
Rössler discusses when the idea of stigma and when it was first considered within our culture in regards to mental illness. Published in 1963, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity by Erwin Goffman was one of the first books to look into how stigma stops those with mental illness to come forward and get the help that they need. This jumpstarted looking into how people with mental illness are discriminated against everyday within our society and how they are considered weaker or with lesser value than those without mental illness. Rössler also gets into the idea of self-stigma, or the idea that a person internalizes the stigma that society places on them. This can lead to an even worse deteroration of mental health. This self-stigma is enough to stop people from seeking treatment and getting the help that they deserve. Instead they look to other options such as suicide.