Does the Use of Psychiatrists as Sources of Information Improve Media Depictions of Mental Illness? A Pilot Study

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 583-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Nairn
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Special Report ◽  
Lay Persons ◽  
Media Practices ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Positive Effect

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine whether mental illnesses are depicted in less negative ways in print media when psychiatrists rather than lay persons are the source of information. Method: Seven items from a special report on mental health, four derived from lay sources and three from psychiatrists, were subjected to a discourse analysis informed by knowledge of media practices. Results: The psychiatrists were clearly distinguished and deployed as experts in contrast to lay sources. Two of the psychiatrists presented mental illnesses in less negative ways than in the other items. These more positive depictions were undermined by the devices that the journalists used to give authority to the portrayals of mental illness and by the need to create ‘newsworthy’ items. Conclusion: If psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are to have a positive effect on how media depict mental illness, they will have to develop closer relationships with journalists and a better appreciation of media priorities and practices.

scholarly journals Tensions and Paradoxes of Stigma: Discussing Stigma in Mental Health Rehabilitation

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (16) ◽  
pp. 5943
Author(s):  
Jenny Paananen ◽  
Camilla Lindholm ◽  
Melisa Stevanovic ◽  
Elina Weiste
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mentally Ill ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Rehabilitation Centers ◽  
Health Rehabilitation ◽  
Mental Health Rehabilitation

Mental illness remains as one of the most stigmatizing conditions in contemporary western societies. This study sheds light on how mental health professionals and rehabilitants perceive stigmatization. The qualitative study is based on stimulated focus group interviews conducted in five Finnish mental health rehabilitation centers that follow the Clubhouse model. The findings were analyzed through inductive content analysis. Both the mental health rehabilitants and the professionals perceived stigmatization as a phenomenon that concerns the majority of rehabilitants. However, whereas the professionals viewed stigma as something that is inflicted upon the mentally ill from the outside, the rehabilitants perceived stigma as something that the mentally ill themselves can influence by advancing their own confidence, shame management, and recovery. Improvements in treatment, along with media coverage, were seen as the factors that reduce stigmatization, but the same conceptualization did not hold for serious mental illnesses. As the average Clubhouse client was thought to be a person with serious mental illness, the rehabilitation context designed to normalize attitudes toward mental health problems was paradoxically perceived to enforce the concept of inevitable stigma. Therefore, it is important for professionals in rehabilitation communities to be reflexively aware of these tensions when supporting the rehabilitants.

scholarly journals “I Am Not My Illness!”: Navigating the Mental Healthcare System in New Orleans

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Saira Mehmood ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mental Healthcare ◽  
Mental Illnesses

This research examines the experiences of individuals diagnosed with chronic mental illnesses and how they navigated the mental healthcare system in New Orleans, Louisiana. To realize the main research objective, I analyzed how individuals with chronic mental illnesses perceive mental illness and stigma; the services individuals use to address their mental health needs and the barriers they face in this process; who individuals disclose their mental illness to and under what contexts; and how individuals diagnosed with mental illness and their caregivers understand and embody recovery. Situated between medical anthropology and urban anthropology, it examines the challenges individuals diagnosed with chronic mental illness and caregivers encounter in utilizing mental health services. Using critical race theory and studies on whiteness, I analyze the intersectional identities of individuals to understand how various axes of identities such as race, gender, age, and religion affect how people utilize mental health services, conceptualize stigma, how this is related to disclosure, and what recovery means to them. While I use stigma scales to measure various types of stigma, I triangulate this data with observations from participant-observation and interviews to reconceptualize stigma in what Tyler and Slater (2018) argue for approaching the social and political dynamics of stigma and acknowledging history. I do this through the use of stigma syndemics. Central to this is the role of mental health professionals and other key stakeholders, and how they interact with individuals utilizing community mental health services. I examine how past experiences such as trauma and incarceration limit access to housing programs, employment, and how this affects recovery. Lastly, I argue that for effective advocacy on mental health to occur, synergistic activism through coalition building needs to transpire between all the entities that affect individuals who have mental illnesses.

scholarly journals Assess the Psychosocial Problem Faced by the Primary Caregivers of Mentally Challenged Children

2021 ◽  
pp. 399-404
Author(s):  
Achal Jiwane ◽  
Ragini Joshi ◽  
Divyani Kanholkar ◽  
Shreya Kapgate ◽  
Deeplata Mendhe
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Pervasive Developmental Disorders ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Primary Caregivers ◽  
Psychosocial Problems ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Psychosocial Problem ◽  
Stressful Event

Background: It is estimated that up to 20% of children worldwide suffer from debilitating mental illness. Learning disabilities, ADHD, depression, psychosis, pervasive developmental disorders, attachment disorders, anxiety, and conduct disorder are all serious mental illnesses. Living with such children can be extremely stressful for the family's caregiver. Recognizing the difficulties of living with these children is critical in assisting or supporting caregivers in providing appropriate care for their children. For family members, the onset and long-term presence of mental illness can be a stressful event or a crisis. Interactions with mental health professionals have been found to have an impact on these families' transition from crisis to recovery. Families who meet with a mental health professional regularly have a better chance of recovering from the crisis and dealing with the situation. Objectives: Assess the psychosocial problem faced by the primary caregivers of mentally challenged children. Materials and Methods: Descriptive research study was to assess psychosocial problems faced by primary caregiver’s children who are mentally challenged. Selected parents who are mentally challenged children of community area. In this study total number of 50 samples to fulfill the inclusion criteria were selected. Likert scale was developed to assess psychosocial problems. Expected Result: This study is a plan to assess the psychosocial problem faced by primary care children who are mentally challenged. Hence it is expected to identify the psychosocial problem of parents with mentally challenged children.

scholarly journals Transcultural Psychiatry: Comparison of Eastern and Western Culture and their influence on mental health and its treatment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shyun Ping Tiong ◽  
Starry Rajkumari ◽  
NurFariesha Farhanna binti Rasidi ◽  
Olga Viktorovna Poplavskaya
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Test Validity ◽  
Spiritual Healing ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Transcultural Psychiatry

Introduction In a globalizing world the need for humans to understand one another is fundamental. Transcultural Psychiatry aims to bridge the differences due to culture, norms and values, especially in a controversial topic such as the paranormal between doctors and patients. Objectives To study the beliefs of Eastern and Western populations on the subject of religion, the paranormal and its relation to mental health. Methods The study was conducted targeting citizens of Eastern and Western countries (target sample size 200). A survey and 2 case studies were distributed, aimed to determine respondents level of belief in cultural superstitions and practices, views on mental disorders and opinions on treatment. A chi-square statistical test (significance set at 0.05) was performed to test validity. Results Results are tabulated in Table 1. In the case studies, P-value =4.68x10 -6 proves a strong relationship between East/West populations and their viewpoints on mental illness vs. possession. There is a strong relationship (p=3.37x10 -5) between respondents beliefs in spiritual healing and its effectiveness in treating mental illness. Table 1 East West Total respondents (226) 58% 42% Identified as religious 74% 26% Strong belief in paranormal 85% 15% Effectiveness of spiritual healing 55% 45% Preferred methods of treatment Mental health professionals 54% 46% Religious healer/psychic 90% 10% Conclusions The study revealed that Eastern populations are far more superstitious and religious than their Western conterparts, and also have higher belief in the effectiveness of spiritual healing to treat mental disorders. This difference demonstrates the importance of integrating culture into diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses, and further explore methods for more inclusive treatment plans.

Prescriptive Power: Biologism, Biopsychiatry and Drug-centred Psychopharmacology

Somatechnics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 291-309
Author(s):  
Francis Russell
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biological Ontology ◽  
Health Discourse

This paper looks to make a contribution to the critical project of psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, by elucidating her account of ‘drug-centred’ psychiatry, and its relation to critical and cultural theory. Moncrieff's ‘drug-centred’ approach to psychiatry challenges the dominant view of mental illness, and psychopharmacology, as necessitating a strictly biological ontology. Against the mainstream view that mental illnesses have biological causes, and that medications like ‘anti-depressants’ target specific biological abnormalities, Moncrieff looks to connect pharmacotherapy for mental illness to human experience, and to issues of social justice and emancipation. However, Moncrieff's project is complicated by her framing of psychopharmacological politics in classical Marxist notions of ideology and false consciousness. Accordingly, she articulates a political project that would open up psychiatry to the subjugated knowledge of mental health sufferers, whilst also characterising those sufferers as beholden to ideology, and as being effectively without knowledge. Accordingly, in order to contribute to Moncrieff's project, and to help introduce her work to a broader humanities readership, this paper elucidates her account of ‘drug-centred psychiatry’, whilst also connecting her critique of biopsychiatry to notions of biologism, biopolitics, and bio-citizenship. This is done in order to re-describe the subject of mental health discourse, so as to better reveal their capacities and agency. As a result, this paper contends that, once reframed, Moncrieff's work helps us to see value in attending to human experience when considering pharmacotherapy for mental illness.

scholarly journals Experience of stigma among Chinese mental health patients in Hong Kong

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 451-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. F. Chung ◽  
M. C. Wong
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
The People ◽  
Mental Health Patients ◽  
Stigma Of Mental Illness

Aims and MethodThe study was intended to rectify the lack of data on how Chinese people experience the stigma of mental illness. A questionnaire on perceived stigmatisation, experiences of rejection and ways of coping with stigma was completed by 193 persons attending a psychiatric out-patient clinic in Hong Kong.ResultsMost of the participants were aware of the stigma associated with mental illness, but experiences of rejection were relatively less frequent. Eleven per cent of the respondents indicated that they were neglected by health care professionals and 8% had been avoided by family members. The most frequently reported coping method was maintaining secrecy about the illness.Clinical ImplicationsIn China, people with mental health problems experience stigma in various degrees. However, some of the people surveyed expressed feelings of relief that others were supportive and sympathetic towards their illness. Mental health professionals should maintain optimism in helping their patients to cope with the stigma.

The Greater Vancouver Mental Health Service Society: 20 Years' Experience in Urban Community Mental Health

1993 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 308-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Sladen-Dew ◽  
Douglas A. Bigelow ◽  
Ralph Buckley ◽  
Stephen Bornemann
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Service ◽  
Health Service ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mental Illnesses ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teams ◽  
Fully Integrated ◽  
Mentally Disabled ◽  
Community Agencies ◽  
Persons With Schizophrenia

Caring for people in the community with persistent and disabling mental illnesses presents a major challenge to government, planners and mental health professionals. The success with which mentally disabled people are integrated into community life says much about the society in which we live. This article describes the experience of the Greater Vancouver Mental Health Service Society in offering community-based mental health services to persons with schizophrenia and other major mental disorders over the past 20 years. The key to its success lies in a decentralized, relatively non hierarchical organizational structure which allows committed and skilled multidisciplinary teams to work with patients and their families in their community. The resulting services are fully integrated within the fabric of the community and are responsive to local needs. Partnerships among professionals, patients, families and community agencies result in work that is creative, productive and effective.

scholarly journals Mental health problems, benefits and tackling discrimination

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 200-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Galloway ◽  
Billy Boland ◽  
Gareth Williams
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Clinical Evidence ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Advisory Board ◽  
Policy Institute

SummaryPoverty is strongly associated with mental illness. Access to state benefits can be a lifeline for people with mental health problems in times of hardship and can assist them on their journey of recovery. However, benefit application processes can discriminate against those with mental illness and can result in individuals unjustly missing out on support. Clinical evidence from mental health professionals can ameliorate these challenges and ensure that people get access to financial help.Declaration of interestDr Billy Boland is on the advisory board of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.

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