In mental health care perphaps more so than in any other healthcare field stigma is a huge barrier to people seeking help when they need it. Even if a person is mindful of how they are feeling and are self’ compassionate enough to know that they need help the stigma and self-stigma prevents them. This is something that is frustrating for both the individual person and the professionals who can offer that help. Sometimes the professionals also become stigmatised through association with the stigmatised person. If we are not careful we can perpetuate stigma by doing nothing about it when we know it exists. Hw do we address this harmful behaviour that can prevent people seeking help  and  healthy self care practices developing? Martha Nussbaum who I have mentioned before (see the reference page) suggests that we cannot be compassionate towards people who we think do not deserve our help. This includes people with unhealthy behaviours such as over eating, drinking too much alcohol or smoking. People can justify their lack of compassion by stereotyping and stigmatising  the person as not deserving compassion because they are knowingly harming their body.  Other ways in which we stigmatise people is in believing that groups of people are all the same incluing people with a diagnosis of mental illness for example.  One diagnosis much misunderstood is Dementia which is not a diagnosis at all but an umbrella term for many other diagnoses that affect our memory. Most people think people with this diagnosis are lost or unable to communicate coherently so they stop trying to be compassionate towards them. They stop trying to see the person, to get to know their diverse needs or find out what support they need to recover their hope of a good life, while they still have it.  This lack of compassion is not deliberate but it is based on unfounded beliefs that the person will not benefit from compassionate care. Compassionate care must be for everyone not just for a few . My favourite video is posted below to demonstrate  what happens when compassionate care is used in practice. When trying to get to know the needs of the person, to accept their diveristy and to give them some hope of recovering who they still are. You can find out more about this project by clicking here  Gladys Wilson & Naomi Feil