Conclusion and recommendations for future action

Abstract

Over the past several millennia, people in the societies with mental illness have been rejected or mistreated in many societies-because of their illness-related behaviour and the fear that mental illness might be contagious or inheritable. At various points in history and in different countries, the mentally ill were executed, kept in chains, sent down the river in ships of fools or beaten to death. This still happens but fortunately less and less frequently.