We learn much about people we don’t routinely interact with from the media.
Unfortunately,media portrayalsof people living with mental illness often skew toward either stigmatization or trivialization.
What Is Stigmatization?
xavierarnau / iStock
Stigmainvolves negative beliefs,attitudes, and behaviors directed toward people based on some distinguishing characteristics.
Stigma happens when some person is viewed as an “other.”
People who areotheredare then denied full social acceptance.
Mental health stigma has significant negative consequences.
Mental Illness Is Overgeneralized
People with mental illness can also suffer from overgeneralization in media portrayals.
Every person with a specific mental health condition is expected to display the same characteristics or symptoms.
For instance, common depictions are that allpeople with depressionaresuicidal, and all people withschizophreniahallucinate.
In reality, 60% and 80% of people withschizophrenia experience auditory hallucinations.
An even smaller number of people experience visual hallucinations.
Instead, mental illness often goes unrecognized (whether that is intentional or not).
The portrayals in the media tend to present situations whereeveryonein a character’s life knows about their mental illness.
Perhaps most concerning, the media often portrays mental illness as untreatable or unrecoverable.
That is certainly not a reflection of reality.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, mental illness can take many forms.
It’s also treatable, but each person’s treatment is individualized and depends on their condition and needs.
For many, a combination of therapy and medication is most effective.
It often downplays the seriousness of the disease, hiding its serious consequences.
The truth is, the death rate for people with anorexia is high.
In reality, anorexia has one of the highest mortality rates of any mental health condition.
Research suggests the risk of dying is 10 times higher for people who have anorexia nervosa.
Mental illness can also be oversimplified by the media.
However, the obsessive thoughts that drive their compulsions are overlooked or absent.
The symptoms of mental illness are sometimes portrayed as being beneficial.
For example, in the popular television seriesMonk, the protagonist is a detective with OCD.
The fact that he pays close attention to detail helps him solve crimes and advance his career.
Unfortunately, popular movies and tv shows can exert potent influences on attitude formation.
Based on the findings of the analysis, researchers drew several conclusions.
In reality, symptoms like decreased motivation, poverty of speech, and flat affect are more common.
Some films even presented people with schizophrenia as being “possessed.”
These violent stereotypes influence viewers and engender harsh negative attitudes toward people with mental illness.
In one study, 24% of the characters with schizophrenia committed suicide.
Click below to listen now.
What’s Accurate In Media Portayals?
Not all the information presented about schizophrenia was found to be incorrect, misleading, or stigmatizing.
What Can Be Done?
We need a better understanding of how these messages are disseminated by the media before we can rectify them.
There is limited research looking at how media promotes mental-illness stereotypes, stigmatization, and trivialization.
What Can Media Consumers Do?
2020;5(2):e72-e73.
2014;40 Suppl 4(Suppl 4):S233-45.
doi:10.1093/schbul/sbu036
American Psychiatric Association.What is mental illness?
2022;13:967992. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.967992
Sher L, Kahn RS.Suicide in schizophrenia: An educational overview.Medicina (Kaunas).
2019;9(9):e026532.
doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026532
Babic D, Babic R, Vasilj I, Avdibegovic E.Stigmatization of mentally ill patients through media.Psychiatr Danub.
2017 Dec;29(Suppl 5):885-889.
Results from a systematic review.Can J Psychiatry.
2023;4(1):sgad018.
