What role does the media play in stigmatizing mental illness?
According to Kevin Merideth, staff counselor at Mississippi State University, the media often inaccurately depict people with mental illnesses as a community of “ticking bombs.” Therefore, the general public is inclined to believe people with mental illnesses are inherently violent and dangerous.
“You tend to see (mental illness) blown way out of proportion in how the media reports it. If someone has had psychiatric treatment, the media latches right on to that: ‘mental patient does this,’” Merideth said. “These (portrayals) tend to be wildly exaggerated.”
For junior Spanish major Ashleigh Andrews, the way the media portrays mental illness affects her personally. Andrews requested the fact she has several mental illnesses be published for the sake of her credibility.
Given her own experiences, Andrews said the media love to portray people with mental illnesses as either extremely unpredictable, or irrationally depressed with both being romanticized and exaggerated for the sake of a good story.
“In some ways, society finds (mental illness) attractive because they think it’s something beautifully tragic,” Andrews said. “Real life depression looks like ‘I haven’t showered in days, or talked to anybody, or drank water. I’m either starving myself or overeating, because I don’t want to face my feelings.’ Real depression doesn’t look like looking sad out of a window at the rain.”
To Andrews, the reality of mental illness is not as aesthetically pleasing as the media portrays it to be. Instead, mental illness is a daily struggle few notice or care about.
“Real people with (mental illnesses) aren’t glamorous, and they don’t feel glamorous because it’s real, it’s not Hollywood,” Andrews said.
Lediya Dumessa, instructor and doctoral student in the department of psychology at MSU, said the media often characterize the mentally ill as having disheveled physical appearances, being incompetent or violent. As a result, many people have a singular image of what mental illness is.
Dumessa explained the media fail to remind the public that people with mental illnesses are individuals who live similar lives to everyone else filled with work, school, family and friends.
“I don’t think we see the human part of mental illness,” Dumessa said. “We just see the most severe presentation of what would be considered actually relatively rare forms of mental illness.”
Perhaps the most common stereotype surrounding mental illness is those with mental illnesses are more likely to be violent. However, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be victims of violence, rather than the perpetrator themselves, Dumessa said.
Research published by the US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health reveals, fewer than five percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the U.S. between 2001 and 2010 were committed by someone diagnosed with a mental illness.
As stated in the research by psychology professor Paul G. Nestor, “serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia actually reduce the risk of violence over time, as the illnesses are in many cases marked by social isolation and withdrawal.”
In contrast, a 2013 investigation by the “Portland Press Herald” found “at least half” of persons shot and killed by police in Maine suffered from a diagnosable mental illness.
According to Dumessa, the legitimate factors which lead to violent behaviors are ignored, such as history of past violence, substance abuse or environmental stressors. Instead, these determinants are pushed aside, and the public is quick to assume violent behavior is rooted in mental illness.
“We are hyper-focusing on the fact that maybe the person has a diagnosis, and we’re focusing on that and forgetting the other factors that actually contribute and have predictive value when it comes to violence,” Dumessa said.
Dumessa said misinformation about violent behavior, an uninformed society creates a sense of “otherness” for the community of people who have mental illnesses.
Additionally, staff counselor Kevin Merideth said the public has an “us” and “them” mentality which negatively impacts people with mental illnesses.
“We have a way of categorizing human beings, of boiling them down to their most basic attributes whether that be race, whether that be class, whether that be mental illness,” Merideth said.
The negative treatment of people with mental illnesses begins with stigma which gives rise to stereotypes and ultimately leads to discrimination, Merideth explained.
“We have this core belief about how individuals with mental illness operate, and we get this idea that this is a thing common to a group of people,” Merideth said. “From a series of stigma, we are able to develop a stereotype, a system of belief about what attributes comprise a person and it is when we use those stereotypes to make our decisions that we get into discrimination and prejudicial behavior.”
Merideth added, discrimination can take the form of limited access to housing, education and jobs with those who control these resources potentially believing a misconception about mental illness that affects their decision making.
In addition to the theme of “ticking bombs,” the media often depics those with mental illnesses as possessing a “keen insight.” Sheldon Cooper from the TV show “The Big Bang Theory” being a primary example as having OCD and possible autism spectrum tendencies, and yet a depiction that he is a genius, Merideth said.