Implementing teaching methods that address
nursing students’ stigmatizing beliefs toward
people with mental illness is important for nurse
educators. The purpose of this article is to describe
how a creative reflective learning project was used
to encourage nursing students to express feelings
about working with clients with mental illness, address
stigma, and facilitate development of empathy.
While working with a client with mental illness
over a 4-week period, students maintained a reflective
journal exploring their assumptions about
mental illness. In addition, students created an individual
project to depict their understanding of
what it was like for their client to live with a mental
illness. Examples of students’ reflections and descriptions
of their projects are presented to demonstrate
how this experience affected students’
views of mental illness.