Correo Contemporáneo

psychotherapy:

Ask people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness – especially a serious one like Schizophrenia – what they think about media coverage of the issue and certain words come up time and again. Words like: ‘offensive’, ‘stigmatising’, ‘sensationalist’, ‘inaccurate’ and ‘distorted’.

Similar terms are also used to describe the depiction of mental illness across the wider media landscape, including drama and entertainment.

The natural next question to ask is: why? Why is it that this overwhelming sense of negativity is what people are left with when they read newspapers or watch television programmes where mental illness is featured?

Indeed - why does it matter if ‘Schizo’ or “Psycho” is used in a headline, or if stories featuring mental illness also tend to make links to violent behaviour?

Partly, all of this matters because of the place many people living with a mental illness feel they hold in our society – one of isolation, fear and shame. Time and again research (in numerous countries) has shown that despite years of vigorous campaigning to change public attitudes around mental illness, negative stereotypes remain and that these attitudes can make recovery for some individuals all the more harder.

The idea of someone with a mental illness as “dangerous” or “deranged” or “threatening” persists and – research also shows – is a common impression reinforced by media reporting. In essence, the way the media reports mental illness does matter. A lot.

To find an eloquent summing up of why what is written and reported by the media matters we need look no further than the seminal book by Otto Wahl, “Media Madness.”

In it Wahl writes: “Media depictions, in their persistent and pervasive inaccurate stereotypes perpetuate the negative attitudes of the public toward people who experience mental disorders and thus help to maintain the stigma, rejection and discrimination that has added to their burden.

“For people with mental illness the images of mental illness that the media currently present have very important, very personal, and very painful consequences.”

For a more personal perspective, take a look at what one person who has lived with psychosis (and who is also a mental health campaigner) has to say on the matter: “People touched by mental illness - and if that’s not you, it’s your brother, your mother, your niece or the bloke sitting across the desk from - get a raw deal. Job applications get thrown in the bin, friends don’t know what to say to you. 

“We listen smarting down the pub, the constant butt of unthinking jokes it would be intolerable to make in civilized company at the expense of ethnic minorities or the physically disabled. 

“But what makes it worse is sitting in your own home, listening to a Radio 4 discussion about someone or other being mocked as ‘psychotic … ha ha ha!’. I’ve experienced psychosis - and you know what? It’s not very funny”.

Research on media coverage of mental illness is a growing field. In recent years, as campaigners and mental health service users have tried to encourage the press to rethink and refine the way the issue is covered, studies have emerged to show that the volume of negative – and potentially stigmatizing – coverage remains extremely high.

Indeed the Press Complaints Commission has latterly recognised coverage of mental illness as worthy of concerted and individual attention. Will Gore, a spokesperson for the PCC points out that the organization is working closely with editors, journalists and campaign groups to improve the situation.

The Code of Practice enforced by the PCC, has been updated as recently as 2006 on the issue and is, Gore says, very clear: “The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s…physical or mental illness or disability.”  Moreover, “details of an individual’s…physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.”

Gore adds: “We have long-recognised the particular importance of raising standards when it comes to reporting on mental health issues. In recent years we have stepped up our efforts to raise awareness of the continued need to avoid the type of reporting that can breach the Code and cause distress to individuals as a result.

“People with mental health problems can be particularly vulnerable to inaccurate, intrusive or discriminatory press reporting. That’s why we believe it so vital that the PCC plays a proactive role in this arena”.

For the past year and a half I have, courtesy of a Fulbright scholarship, been conducting research on coverage of mental illness in the US and British mainstream press with a team of researchers at Berkeley, California. I’ll be presenting some of the key findings to Guardian journalists this Friday - including how coverage has changed over the past 25 years (and how the Guardian stacks up against broader trends).

What my research – and other studies – clearly show is that there is no room for complacency on this issue. Editors and journalists have a significant role to play in the type of coverage of mental illness - and those people living with it – get. It is an area that warrants our attention and our action.