Person-centered medicine from deep inside: personal reflections of my depression and recovery

I myself have suffered from serious mental illness. This is my story of suffering and recovery. In the year of 2006, I volunteered as a Face of Mental Illness Awareness Week, a Canada wide anti-stigma public service campaign organized—in part—by the Canadian Psychiatric Association [1]. I voluntarily chose to do this public service to fight against the stigma of mental illness. This stigma against illnesses of the mind/brain are the result of both internal stigma (self-stigma), and external stigma (social stigma [2]) and both types of stigma are especially strong in the field of medicine [3].