Shawna McCracken

B4 Writing 1010
Rogers
November 19,2014
The Portrayal of Mental Illness in Television
Try and think of everything you know about mental illness. Now think about where that
knowledge came from. Maybe it came from a class, or experience in dealing with mental illness;
first hand or from someone you know. Perhaps it came from popular media like television. Social
media plays such a huge role in society today that it would not be very shocking to suggest that it
influences people's thoughts and behavior. Television is a particularly well known and
experienced form of media. It is a source of entertainment for millions of people with thousands
of shows aired daily around the world. So would it be a shock if I were to suggest that it too can
have an influence on people? And what if sometimes that influence is negative, providing false
or exaggerated information? The overly dramatic portrayal of mental illness on television has
influenced how people view mental illness and those who suffer from it.
There are a large amount of people who suffer from mental illness in one form or another.
In fact studies show that over a quarter of the American population has diagnosable mental
illness (Holliday, 2011). I am not going to say that the look on mental illness today is horrible
and unreasonable because that is a bit of an over exaggeration. Todays perceptions of mental
illness have actually come a long way. Mental illness used to be characterized as untreatable
maladies and people who suffered from them were given up on and thrown into mental hospitals
(Holliday, 2011). This clear improvement does not mean that there is not still room for more
improvement. According to Jason Schnittkers review of recent research on public beliefs the

public shows a growing appreciation of genetic causes, as well as increasing enthusiasm for
medical treatment for psychiatric disorders (2012). This suggests that though the public is more
willing to acknowledge the genetic causes of mental illness and not putting the fault on those
who suffer from it, the enthusiasm for medical treatment suggests that they still look at it as a
flaw that needs to be treated in most or all cases instead of only some.
Why does the publics opinion matter in the the case of those who are mentally ill? This
can best be described by the statement that Public beliefs about mental illness are important for
understanding when and how the public seeks treatment for mental illness, as well as how they
behave toward those who suffer from mental illness (Schnittker, 2012). In many cases the
public have an influence on how to go about treatment of the mentally ill. Aside from this there
are the effects on anyone if they are looked at negatively or if behavior toward them is different
than most people that they can feel different and look at themselves the way others see them. The
stigma of mental illness affects so many people, both mentally ill and not, that many who are
mentally ill feel uncomfortable admitting to it and getting the support and help they need because
of the fear of being seen as mentally ill and looked at differently by those around them. In fact
about half of the people with severe mental illness in America alone never seek treatment
(SoRelle, n.d). The fact that so many people suffer from mental illness and only about half seek
treatment shows that those with mental illness are not comfortable admitting to suffering from it,
so they do not get help.
So far I have discussed the publics view on mental illness but have yet to say how that
is affected by television. This view comes from a lack of knowledge about mental illness.
People try to fill in missing information with the sources available. These sources often include
a lot of actors portrayals on television due to the fact that we live in an age where information is

commonly provided by the media (Holliday, 2011). This lack of knowledge has led people who
are mentally ill to be among the most stigmatized and discriminated against groups (Sakellari et
al., 2014). Many Americans obtain their view of the world from sources such as television and
other media. The exaggerated stereotypes of mental illness found in these sources reinforce the
culture wide stigmatization (Levin, 2014).
These exaggerated and dramatic views tend to show the mentally ill as very violent
people. They tend to be the killers in crime shows or the villains in shows involving heros. This
stigma of mental illness I keep bringing up is the publics lingering fear of violence among those
with mental illness (Schnittker, 2012). In many cases people tend to see the mentally ill as these
violent bad guys because that is what they are used to. This can be seen multiple times in
shows like the hit TV show Criminal Minds. This as well as other crime shows have several
episodes such as Criminal Minds Fisher King two part episode where the killer is a man who
suffers from severe schizophrenia (Criminal Minds, S1E22 & S2E1). This is an event that
happens all the time, especially in crime shows. There is an amazing number of episodes where
the killer will have schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, or obsessive compulsive
disorder. Even outside of what is considered regular TV shows in other forms of media such as
news this idea of the mentally ill is rarely shown in other ways. When watching the news, or any
form of informative media like, that there is more emphasis when someone who is mentally ill
does something bad than when someone else does. This being shown compliments what
television tends to say about the mentally ill. In reality it is very rare for someone with a mental
illness to act violent in any way. A valuable piece of information to know is included in an
article by Aaron Levin where it shares that mental illness is a poor predictor of violence,
ranking well after these factors: youth, male gender, history of violence, or poverty and that

people with mental illness commit violent acts at the same rate as non patients, and 80 percent
to 90 percent of people with mental illness never commit violent acts (2014). This information
proves as an example of how incorrect the stigma of the mentally ill being violent really is.
Mental illness comes up in television from crime shows to commedies. In many of these
cases the representation of the mental illness is inaccurate and primarily depict mainly the
negative symptomatology. One of many examples of a show that has such depiction of mental
illness is a study focusing on the show American Horror Storys second season called American
Horror Story: Asylum. The show takes place at the Briarcliff Mental Hospital in the 1960s and is
described in the study as a collection of Clichs about mental illness (Shand et al., 2014). It is
specified that they are not singling out the show in this study. The creator of the show are just
doing their job and satisfying their audience without the consideration that their
misrepresentations and exaggerations can lead to lasting negative impressions.
This brings me to the point that it can be argued that the creators of these shows have no
intention of projecting anything negative about mental illness, so can their shows really be part
of the blame. I can agree completely that the creators arent trying to make mental illness look
bad by any means. However, that does not change the fact that it is. These shows are part of a
cycle where they help promote the stigma of mental illness because it is what is known to them
and they use to create the story. They are influenced by media and television in the world
around them and therefore use that to create the media that continues this cycle. It can also
rightfully be argued that not all of the portrayals of mental illness are negative. This is true altho
most tend to be incorrect. There are also studies such as one done on interpreting the drawings
of Greek adolescents that show that television that more accurately represents the truth about
mental illness is just as likely to create a more positive and understanding view on mental illness

as negative television is to create a negative view (Sakellari et al., 2014). It is for this reason that
television shows should take more caution to make sure what they are portraying mental illness
as is accurate.
In conclusion the overall outlook television has on mental illness is inaccurate and
exaggerated. This can make it difficult for those who suffer from mental illness to get the help
they need because of the common view of the public. This is not necessarily true in all cases and
is proven to have an opposite affect on peoples view with accurate information. There is no
intention to have this negative effect on those who are mentally ill, however it is still present
and can be avoided if more attention is given to how mental illness is portrayed and how that
may affect peoples views on it.

Works Cited
Holliday, Ryan P. "Changing Media Depictions of Mental Illness." Psych Central. 1 Jan. 2011.
Web.
<http://psychcentral.com/lib/changing-media-depictions-of-mental-illness/0008213>.
Levin, Aaron. "Violence and Mental Illness: Media Keep Myths Alive." Psychiatric News. 1
Jan.
2014. Web. <http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ph.36.9.0010>.
Sakellari, Evanthia, Kimmo Lehtonen, Andre Sourander, and Athena KalokerinouAnagnostopoulou.
"Greek Adolescents' Views of People with Mental Illness through Drawings: Mental
Health Education's Impact." Wiley Online Library. 2 Jan. 2014
Schnittker, Jason. "Public Beliefs About Mental Illness." 25 June 2012. Web.
Shand, John Preston, Susan Hatters Friedman, and Fernando Espi Forcen. "The Horror, the
Horror:
Stigma on Screen." 31 Oct. 2014. Web.
SoRelle, Ruth. "Nearly Half of Americans With Severe Mental Illness Do Not Seek Treatment."
Nearly Half of Americans With Severe Mental Illness Do Not Seek Treatment. Web.
<http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/101/5/e66.full>.