In the last few years we have witnessed the deterioration of the human psycho-physical condition. The number of people suffering from various mental disorders is increasing year on year. It is therefore becoming a fundamental task not only to prevent mental disorders, organise systems of professional care and systems of rehabilitation for people with chronic mental disorders, but it also seems important to change attitudes towards people with mental disorders and above all to change the still functioning stereotype of the mentally ill.

The reaction to a mental illness such as schizophrenia, depression or neurosis, for example, is a gradual or sudden reorientation of the environment towards the sick person, which leads to them being labelled 'mentally ill' as a symbol of their new social role. This role has positive attributes - the chance of help, exemption from duties, social benefits (pension, allowances), but also negative attributes - the reluctant attitude of the environment, sidelining, accusation of laziness, ridicule, etc. Since, some mental disorders are lifelong illnesses - the new role of the patient becomes a permanent one. This reaction leads to the institutionalisation of the patient's fate, changing the balance and his or her place in the family, group or wider social environment. For these reasons, many people around the patient become convinced that they are dealing with an egocentric person. The patient himself, due to his increasing dependence on others, assumes a childlike status, and often creates the appearance of regression in his behaviour. If the patient's pre-sickness world is not maintained and he himself is abandoned in his suffering and fears, apathy appears, which can become the most significant barrier to treatment or rehabilitation.

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The naming of a person as mentally ill is a fact with a humanistic coefficient, that is, if it becomes the content of the consciousness of one or more people, then this fact, triggers the mechanisms for the realisation of the disease state. It is known that the "community" of mentally healthy people is the most exclusive, and the moral and social extermination of mentally ill "individuals", the most complete. The kind of spiritual divide and sense of alienation that exists between the mentally ill and the healthy is unparalleled, for the principles of segregation are entered into by an associated sense of the essence of humanity in general. Classifying someone as mentally ill entails a profound change in the individual's social environment, from a normal environment to an extremist environment.
In attempting to explain the existing image of the mentally ill person in the wider social environment, reference can be made to the concept of stereotypes. H. Tajfel in his article entitled. "Social stereotypes and social groups" quotes the following definition: "A stereotype - is a certain simplified mental image about certain categories of persons, institutions or events, shared in its essential shape by a large number of people. Stereotypes are usually - but not necessarily - accompanied by prejudices, i.e. favourable or unfavourable attitudes towards each representative of the category in question".