Mental Health Stigma, Discrimination, and Prejudice
Mental Health Stigma, Discrimination and Prejudice
Karen Bleicher
Spring, 2009
Professor Mark Harris
Social Problems 2023
To Fight Stigmas, Start with Treatment
Last fall, British television broadcast a reality program called “How Mad Are You?” The plot was simple: 10 volunteers lived together for a week in a house in the countryside and took part in a series of challenges. The amazing thing was that there were no prizes at the end of the challenges. There was a very interesting concept to the reality show. Five of the volunteers had a history of a serious mental illness, like obsessive compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder, and the other five volunteers did not have any mental illness. The challenges that were meant to elicit latent symptoms included mucking out a cowshed, performing stand-up comedy and taking psychological tests. At the end of the week there was a panel of experts that watched hours of video tape. The panel consisted of 3 people: a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a psychiatric nurse. The real concept of the show was to see if the panel of professionals could distinguish between who had mental illness and who didn’t. After watching hours of videotape, the experts correctly identified only two of the five people with a history of mental illness. Also they misidentified two of the healthy people as having mental illness. The point that was made is that even trained professionals cannot reliably determine mental illness by appearances and actions alone. The true reason the experts were stumped is because the participants’ most dramatic symptoms immobilizing depression, agitated mania, and relentless hand washing and so on had been treated and were under control. Rob Liddell, the producer, wrote “Having a mental illness doesn’t have to become your defining characteristic and it shouldn’t set you apart in society.” The show “How Mad Are You” might be the first reality show of its kind, but it fits within a
Karen Bleicher
Spring, 2009
Professor Mark Harris
Social Problems 2023
To Fight Stigmas, Start with Treatment
Last fall, British television broadcast a reality program called “How Mad Are You?” The plot was simple: 10 volunteers lived together for a week in a house in the countryside and took part in a series of challenges. The amazing thing was that there were no prizes at the end of the challenges. There was a very interesting concept to the reality show. Five of the volunteers had a history of a serious mental illness, like obsessive compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder, and the other five volunteers did not have any mental illness. The challenges that were meant to elicit latent symptoms included mucking out a cowshed, performing stand-up comedy and taking psychological tests. At the end of the week there was a panel of experts that watched hours of video tape. The panel consisted of 3 people: a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a psychiatric nurse. The real concept of the show was to see if the panel of professionals could distinguish between who had mental illness and who didn’t. After watching hours of videotape, the experts correctly identified only two of the five people with a history of mental illness. Also they misidentified two of the healthy people as having mental illness. The point that was made is that even trained professionals cannot reliably determine mental illness by appearances and actions alone. The true reason the experts were stumped is because the participants’ most dramatic symptoms immobilizing depression, agitated mania, and relentless hand washing and so on had been treated and were under control. Rob Liddell, the producer, wrote “Having a mental illness doesn’t have to become your defining characteristic and it shouldn’t set you apart in society.” The show “How Mad Are You” might be the first reality show of its kind, but it fits within a
References: 1. Satel, S (2009, April 21). To Fight Stigmas, Start with Treatment. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com 2. Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity Prentice-Hall, 1963 ISBN 0-671-62244-7 3. Bruce G. Link and Jo C. Phelan, “Conceptualizing Stigma”, Annual Review of Sociology, 2001 p. 363 4. Corrigan, P (2004, November 30), On the Stigma of Mental Illness: Practical Strategies for Research and Social Change. American Psychological Assn. 5. Henslin, J (2008) Social Problems: A Down-To-Earth Approach Eighth Edition Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville Il