THINKING ABOUT SOCIAL STIGMA AND ANTI-STIGMA EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS, FROM COMPLEXITY

Abstract

Traditionally, public health has implemented educational programs aimed at eliminating social stigma against mental health disorders from a vertical perspective, assuming a linear and dualistic character, due to this, there is little acceptance and poor impact of these in the community. This article discusses the need to address social stigma and educational programs to reduce it based on complexity sciences’ contributions, which allow approaching this phenomenon to overcome the determinism and reductionism that has marked the normal science. To carry out this approach, three arguments are proposed, the first one refers to that stigma must be understood as a complex adaptive system in which there is an interaction between the flows of information that are handled and interwoven within social systems; secondly, the unpredictability factor which plays a major role in educational programs must be taken into account; and thirdly the social systems in which stigma arises tend to evolve and co-evolve aspect that must be taken into account when implementing educational processes. Finally, it is concluded that educational programs to address social stigma must take into account changing environments characterized by turbulence and fluctuations, which leads to the assumption that education is an open system sensitive to the structures and dynamics of the context in which stigma manifests itself.