Are health professionals ever discriminatory?

Certainly there’s evidence for that from the Viewpoint Survey with people talking about being unfairly treated on the basis of their mental health problem, with examples to back that up.

Personally, I feel it’s something that’s probably related to burnout. People get burnt out because they feel they’re not making a difference, so they are essentially frustrated and tired, and they feel like they’re not being able to help enough – and then there’s a tendency to not really see people as individuals. And an aspect of that is becoming prejudiced about people, and falling into the trap of 'well, I’m not able to bring about change for this person so there must be something about them – they’re not trying hard enough.'