Week 2

Aware Lecture Series

Title: Stopping Youth Mental Health Stigma

On the 12^th of February, we attended a lecture about Stopping Youth Mental Health Stigma in St. Patrick’s University Hospital. The lecture discussed the main difficulties people with mental-health issues face by the society and how to address them. It was delivered by Eilis Hennessy, a professor in Developmental Psychology.

We were interested in the topic of the lecture, as it was our first time to discuss it freely. Stigma is a society issue, as Prof. Hennessy mentioned, and that is why people often avoid talking about it. Furthermore, we, as medical students, found the lecture highly beneficial, as it raised our awareness about Mental Health issues in general, and specially Stigma. We thought that the majority of the audience would be University students, but we were surprised to know that there were some people with previous mental health issues or some other people who are interested in the lecture. The professor managed to deliver the topic in an interesting and simple way and in a short time, despite the high number of information included. She also kept adding examples to support her ideas. What we liked the most about the lecture that it was interactive, as she asked some questions to the audience during the lecture. The only thing that we did not expect was the small number of the audience, we think that people should attend lectures in such topics in order to raise their awareness and to get a chance to discuss these topics with others. The professor allocated time for questions and participations after the presentation, and a student, who had Bipolar disorder earlier in his life, described the stigma he faced.

Overall, It was a great opportunity to improve our knowledge about mental health stigma. And also having the lecture in the hospital gave us the chance to visit a Mental Health Service department.