The Shared Imagination of Mental Illness: Exploring How We are Haunted by Representations of Mental Illness in the The Media.
I’m very pleased to bring to you my new publication which you can find here:
The article I’ve written explores the fact that many current representations of mental illness in film, music and TV continue to hark back to the days of mental health asylums and institutions. Why is this? It also explores contemporary semi-autobiographical works and the reality of what it is to experience mental illness in our society and how it is portrayed in our headline news.
There seems to be a divide between what it is to experience general mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety and the reality of mental illness once we enter the realms of severe and enduring mental illness such as schizophrenia, bi-polar, psychosis etc. It seems society casts us as either either ‘mad’ or ‘not mad’. There are very scarce representations of positive hospital experiences that portray the person (not defined by their illness) as a person connected to a community. It seems that once a person enters hospital they are ‘other’ than us – and ‘mad’, something has gone horribly wrong in their brain and we lose the representation of their humanity.
The reality is very different – the question we need to ask is ‘what has happened to a person’ rather than ‘what is wrong with them’. Many mental health issues are triggered by social and environmental issues beyond our individual control. Trauma is a significant factor in most peoples experiences.
Unfortunately people are continuing to represent mental health experiences as the horror of asylums as a short hand representation of the frightening and challenging experiences they have encountered. These images continue to reinforce negative stereotypes of mental health and how we perceive people who have a mental health diagnosis. The article has been written as part of my PhD research and will contribute to my overall aim of trying to raise the profile of the human spirit within a mental health journey, and how we pay attention to our inner feelings when going through challenging experiences. As a society I feel we can do so much more, we need to pay more attention to prevention of trauma and education around looking after our inner psyche.
*Picture downloaded from Pixabay with thanks to Chenspec.
Adventures from Base Camp 