Welcome message by Professor Danuta Wasserman, President of the World Psychiatric Association.

Ahead of each new issue of this journal, we select a theme that we believe will be of interest to colleagues in the Nordic and Baltic countries, and where similarities and differences can be highlighted. This time, we chose to focus on stigma—that is, negative attitudes toward people with psychiatric conditions. The concept is broad and encompasses prejudice and discrimination.

A description of origins, structure, and ambitions of a regional initiative to develop early-career psychiatric researchers.

Parents of adolescents hospitalized in a psychiatric ward inevitably face the stigma associated with mental disorders. First, when experiencing external stigma from others, parents begin to feel blamed and socially shamed for their child’s mental disorder, often being labeled as incompetent parents. The prevailing view is that parents whose children have been diagnosed with mental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, and especially social phobi

Interview with sexual medicine specialist and psychiatrist Dr. Giedrė Jonušienė.

Stigma in psychiatric settings stems from more than just individual prejudice; it is actively maintained through institutional, linguistic, and emotional defence mechanisms. The glass-enclosed nursing station serves as the most visible symbol of these boundaries. Behind it, documentation rituals, professional language, and diagnostic categories act as institutional defences. While they help clinical staff survive the heavy emotional labour, they simultaneously create the dist

This time, Ida Liebe Felsted, an educational psychiatrist, kindly agreed to share her working week.

Stigmatization of psychiatric patients, particularly those with co-occurring substance use disorders, is a common reason for exclusion from both society and treatment within the Danish healthcare system. Healthcare professionals are generally aware of this problem and are often able to identify the consequences of societal stigmatization, such as prejudice, exclusion from treatment, judgmental questioning, and unwarranted assumptions. However, institutional logics, profession