Stuart, Heather. “Media portrayal of mental illness and its treatments: what effect does it have on people with mental illness?” CNS Drugs, vol. 20, no. 2, 2006, pp. 99-106. EBSCOhost,
http://ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=19748956&site=ehost-live
In the article “Media Portrayal of Mental Illness and its Treatments,” Heather Stuart analyzes media portrayals of mental illness and what social and emotional implications they have. Stuart argues that news and entertainment outlets overwhelmingly dramatize mental illness, emphasizing characteristics of “dangerousness, criminality, and unpredictability.” Giving examples of movies such as, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Heather Stuart explains that many films present psychiatric treatment as inhumane and only something suitable for “malevolent individuals”. These negative depictions in turn, influence the audience to have doubts on psychiatric treatment as a whole and the motives behind psychiatric professionals. Mental illness depictions can even be found in Disney animated films, with 85% of them containing references to mental illness and 21% of major characters being “referred to as mentally ill.” These mentally ill characters are sources of “fear, derision or amusement” and references to their mental illness are meant to isolate them from others and denote their status as inferior. Overall, these negative depictions of mental illness impair the “self-esteem, help seeking behaviours, medication adherence and overall recovery” of someone suffering with mental illness. Heather Stuart relies on surveys, studies, and other statistics to reliably inform readers that the media plays a major role in promoting mental illness stigma. This article is useful for my research paper because it provides scientific evidence to support my thesis that the media tends to portray mental illness in a negative light. I could also use this article’s information to further strengthen my claim that the media is powerful enough to influence an audience, and therefore should be used to promote positive and educational information about mental illness instead.
Corrigan, Patrick W and Amy C Watson. “Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness” World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) vol. 1,1 (2002): 16-20.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1489832/
In the article “Understanding the Impact of Stigma on People with Mental Illness,” published in the World Psychiatry Association journal, Patrick Corrigan examines the effects that public misconceptions of mental illness can have. Corrigan includes studies to support the statistic that the majority of the Western world holds stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illness. He also explains that responses of a particular survey of more than 2000 English and American citizens show that people categorize others with mental illness as one of the following three people: “people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character.” As a result of public belief in stereotypes, people with mental illness are denied the same opportunities as others in regards to employment and satisfactory housing and health care. To support this idea, Corrigan references research showing that stigma has a deleterious impact on obtaining good jobs and leasing safe housing. Through the use of several studies and a few surveys, Corrigan makes his argument reliable and strengthens his argument that mental illness stereotypes can lead to prejudice and negatively affect the live of people suffering with mental illness. This is an important argument that I will include in my own paper and I will use a few of Corrigan’s points to support my own thesis. Specifically, I will reference studies he used that show how stereotypes affect people with mental illness and how misconceptions affect the way others view them. This evidence will help demonstrate why it is so urgent that TV shows and movies stop spreading negative depictions of people living with mental illness.
Hoebeke, Veronique. “An Open Letter to M. Night Shyamalan.” Resources To Recover, 28 Feb.
2017, www.rtor.org/2015/10/22/the-visit/.
In this review of the film, The Visit, Veronique Hoebeke criticizes the heavy promotion of mental illness stigma in the “trope-filled” movie. Hoebeke, explains that, as someone who deals with mental illness herself, she found the depictions of characters with schizophrenia to be largely inaccurate. She recounts that the characters in the film are highly dangerous and even cannibalistic, attempting to murder the children in their sleep and bake them in the oven. Hoebeke makes a valid point that young impressionable viewers may see this portrayal of schizophrenia and think that all people suffering from schizophrenia are deceiving and murderous. She says “Now all of these kids will think that those with schizophrenia will have murderous tendencies.” This review, especially coming from someone who suffers from mental illness, will allow me to include a perspective from a movie viewer as well as the opinion of someone who could be directly affected by these negative depictions of mental illness in the media.
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