It took one 50-minute class period to change how a group of college students see mental illness. A new classroom activity developed by Florida International University psychology professor Meghan Owenz measurably reduced mental-illness stigma among 79 undergraduates — offering a surprisingly simple tool against one of mental health care's most stubborn barriers.
How the 50-minute session worked
Owenz started with a simple premise: roughly 80% of people will experience a psychiatric disorder at some point in their lives. The students first completed a standard mental-illness stigma scale, then took part in a single-day, 50-minute inquiry-based learning lab, then completed the scale a second time. By the end, the average stigma score had dropped significantly.
The activity was deliberately physical and personal. Students answered questions designed to reveal how common certain traits and everyday behaviors really are — having brown eyes, failing to keep New Year's resolutions — moving around the room based on their answers so they could see how many classmates shared the same experiences. Owenz then connected those everyday experiences to psychiatric disorders, showing students that conditions they assumed were rare are surprisingly common.
By the end of the session, students were less likely to view people with mental illness as dangerous or as fundamentally different from "normal" people, and more likely to see mental health conditions as treatable rather than lifelong diagnoses. The shift was strong enough that the class turned on its own course title: students argued that "Abnormal Psychology" no longer reflected what they understood, proposing alternatives such as Divergent Psychology, Mental Health Psychology, Normal Psychology, and Not Abnormal Psychology.
"We're not talking about them, or those other people. We're talking about us, because this is everybody." — Meghan Owenz, FIU psychology professor
Owenz encourages treating mental-health struggles the way people treat physical-health concerns: "Don't think that it needs to be something that you have to do in silence or by yourself, but talk to someone, talk to a mental health professional, reach out to friends and family." She added: "It's a normal human thing to experience trouble with sleep or mood or anxiety or attention or eating."
Why stigma matters so much
Stigma is more than a social problem — it keeps people from seeking help. According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 8 people globally live with a mental disorder — nearly 1 billion people in 2019, including 14% of the world's adolescents. Anxiety and depressive disorders are the most common, and rates of depression and anxiety rose by more than 25% in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The treatment gap is stark. Countries dedicate less than 2% of their healthcare budgets to mental health on average, so only a small fraction of people in need receive effective care. Mental disorders are the leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide — about 1 in 6 years lived with disability globally — and depression and anxiety cost roughly $1 trillion in lost productivity per year. Anything that lowers the barrier to seeking help has enormous leverage.
What the study adds
The findings were published in Teaching of Psychology (SAGE), first online on January 12, 2025, in a paper titled "An Inquiry-Based Learning Activity to Address Mental Illness Stigma" (DOI: 10.1177/00986283241309637). The authors are Meghan B. Owenz, a board-certified licensed counseling psychologist and clinical associate professor at FIU with a PhD from the University of Miami; Megan M. Tewksbury of Kutztown University of Pennsylvania; and Deniz Aydemir-Döke of University Medical Center Utrecht.
The takeaway is encouraging: a single, low-cost, 50-minute classroom conversation can measurably move the needle on stigma. The researchers present it as preliminary evidence — but for a problem as widespread as mental-illness stigma, a tool this simple is worth every classroom's attention.
Watch: "How to talk about mental health without offending everyone" (TEDxCooperUnion) — mediator Dan Berstein draws on his own bipolar disorder diagnosis and conflict-resolution skills to show how honest conversations can break through mental-health stigma.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Long Road Ahead (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0
Sources: FIU News; Teaching of Psychology (SAGE); Al Jazeera