Television and the Portrayal of Mental Health

Yesterday, 22 November 2010, it was widely reported in the British press that a study had found that television drama often portrayed those with mental health problems as ‘dangerous’.  The study was conducted by the Glasgow Media Group who produced the following findings:

• 45% of fictional characters with mental health difficulties were portrayed as a threat
• 63% of references to mental health problems by fictional characters were derogatory

So what, actually, is television drama doing?  It is presenting a particular view of mental health entirely generated by the imagination of its writers?  Or is it reflecting the misapprehensions and prejudices of society in general?  I would suggest that it is indeed reflecting common prejudices, but it is also reinforcing them.

In a previous post in which I wrote about some of the intentions behind my book, Delivered Unto Lions, I said that mental health problems, even today, still carry a stigma.  This stigma will not go away as long as society’s misapprehensions and prejudices go unchallenged.  As I see it, TV drama should represent these prejudices (and this may involve characters using derogatory language), but it is lazy writing that depicts a false representation of the reality (i.e. that those with mental health disorders are dangerous).

Needless to say, a small number of widely reported incidents may persuade us that many people with mental health problems are a threat to us, but the facts say something different.  Violence (for example) is proportionally less common in suffers of such problems than it is in the general population.  Indeed, sufferers of mental health problems are far more likely to be victims of violence than they are perpetrators.  According to Heather Stuart of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, the mentally ill do not contribute significantly to the prevalence of violence in wider society.  If all people with mental disorders were removed from society, violent crime would be reduced by less than 5%.

The writers of television drama are, of course, mainly operating in the sphere of fiction, but surely that fiction would serve viewers better if it displayed a better understanding of the reality.

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Delivered Unto Lions by David Austin is published by CheckPoint Press.
For more information visit www.davidaustin.eu