For decades, the film industry has made a habit of misrepresenting mental illness. These misrepresentations have major impacts on both the internal and external stigmatization of mental illness.
To clarify, stigmatization of mental illness refers to the formation of public attitudes towards people with mental illness. These public attitudes-more often than not-portray people with mental illnesses in a negative light. External stigmas refer to the attitudes held by the general public towards mental illnesses, while internal stigma refers to the attitudes of people with mental illnesses towards themselves. Internal stigma is also referred to as self-stigma.
As Candice Alaska wrote for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, “Hollywood has a long history of misrepresenting those with mental health conditions. These representations are usually portrayals of people with mental illness as violent and dangerous, which contribute to harmful stereotypes about mental illness. Inaccurate representations of mental illness create barriers to reducing stigma, forcing mental health advocates to work overtime to undo these damaging stereotypes. We need the entertainment industry to start accepting responsibility for the role they have in the mental health movement.”
According to Tim Razza, associate professor in the department of neuroscience and chief psychologist for NSU’s psychology postdoctoral residency program, these portrayals are widely inaccurate and have an overarching effect on the stigma of mental illness. For some, these portrayals may be the only place where they have been exposed to mental illness and seeing such a negative depiction of mental illnesses can make them prone to think that these portrayals are accurate, which seems to almost never be the case. In terms of internal stigmatization, a person with mental illness seeing their diagnosis in films, especially in such a negative light, can influence how they see themselves. Past research has shown that stigmatization of mental illness can influence an individual with mental illnesses’ symptoms and cause the symptoms to worsen in some cases.
“I think that many [depictions] fall short of being very clear and accurate, they tend to be more sensationalized and even inaccurate in how they kind of grab on to symptoms of different diagnoses and kind of throw them all together because they make a better character. I tend to have problems with most representations because I just don’t think they are fully accurate in all aspects of what the experience is and tend to focus more on the perceived negative aspects. For individuals that are experiencing these difficulties, it serves to increase that self-stigma because of how they perceive how others are going to perceive them and their difficulties,” said Razza.
According to Razza, schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder and bipolar disorder are commonly misrepresented. Most representations of these, and other disorders, show the person as aggressive and violent. However, around 80% of people with these disorders never show aggressive behavioral patterns, according to Razza. These negative perceptions of mental disorders are over portrayed in the media because it sells a better story.
Movies with inaccurate and somewhat dangerous portrayals
In many cases, these portrayals are not trying to make an accurate representation. An accurate representation of mental illness does not sell movie tickets.
One such movie that is known for its inaccuracies is the 1957 film, “The Three Faces Of Eve.” Joanne Woodward played the role of the titular character, Eve, who was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, which at the time was referred to as multiple personality disorder. The main inaccuracy of “The Three Faces Of Eve” stems from how it showcases the therapeutic process. In the film, Woodward’s character sees a psychotherapist and all of her trauma is “resolved” in a few sessions. As with its portrayal of dissociative identity disorder, this is a misrepresentation of the therapeutic process. Therapy is a process, it takes time. Especially in the time period that this film takes place and with the type of therapy shown in the film, a patient would see their psychotherapist multiple times a week few for several months if not years.
While “The Three Faces Of Eve” may not be the most recent movie, it did portray this disorder to the general public for the first time, which lead to skepticism of psychotherapy and major implications as several defendants tried to use this disorder as a defense in criminal trials. While this defense is rarely used in criminal trials today, the skepticism that “The Three Faces Of Eve” created is still seen today, especially following the release of movies like “Split” or portrayal of dissociative identity disorder in social media.
If helping to end the stigmatization of mental illness is something you care about, then try to avoid movies that portray mental illness in a stigmatizing way and speak out against it.
