What Classroom Activities Best Reduce Psychosis Stigma?

Background Psychosis involves hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized cognition, and society widely misunderstands and stigmatizes this mental health condition. However, despite their reach and popularity, undergraduate psychology courses rarely address psychosis stigma explicitly. Objective The study delineated active learning activities to reduce psychosis stigma. Method Students ( N = 92) took pre- and post-teaching surveys of psychosis attitudes. We examined score changes across: (1) an “education as usual” (EAU) lecture; (2) the EAU lecture and a video featuring narratives of lived experience; (3) students receiving EAU, the same lived experience videos, and a hallucination simulation; and (4) a seminar specifically designed to destigmatize psychosis. Results More teaching elements that featured first-person lived experience narratives reduced stigma. Specifically, the seminar ( p s < .001, d s = 0.95–1.47) and narrative videos ( p s = .005 to <.001, d s = 0.95–1.62) consistently outperformed the simulation ( p s = .021–.006, d s = 0.75–0.98) and EAU ( p s = .84–.034, d s = −0.28 to 0.53). Conclusion While a seminar on destigmatizing psychosis significantly reduced stigma, videos that emphasize recovery and the humanity of people with psychosis reduced stigma as well. Teaching Implications A seminar designed by subject experts to destigmatize psychosis may be a highly effective learning experience. In the absence of these resources, showing videos of people discussing their lived experience with psychosis seems to be as effective.