Broken Personality: Lived Experiences of Patients with Psychiatric Disorders on Self-Stigma

Introduction: Psychiatric disorders are among the most stigmatizing disorders. Self-stigma will have desperate consequences for people such as patients who consider themselves worthless since they belong to a group that most people have negative feelings about. The present study was designed and conducted to better understand the experiences of patients with psychiatric disorders on self-stigma. Methods: This study, performed on 12 psychiatric patients in 2017, was a hermeneutic phenomenological research. The patients were selected based on purposive sampling method and unstructured interviews were used for data collection. According to the method developed by Diekelmann, a hermeneutic approach was used to analyze the data. Moreover, to determine the validity of the study, the criteria provided by Guba and Lincoln were utilized. Results: "Broken Personality" was identified as the main theme of the phenomenon and included seven subthemes: "Injured feelings", "Like wax in the hands of others," "Scandalous symptoms of disease," "Coming from another land," "Stranger to oneself", "Degradation of the position", and "Shame of diagnosis". Conclusion: The results of this study emphasized the necessity to develop comprehensive and appropriate interventions to combat and prevent self-stigma in patients with psychiatric disorders.