Whether in movies, cartoons, commercials, or even fast food marketing, psychology and mental illness remain pervasive in popular culture. In this collection of new essays, scholars from a range of fields explore representations of mental illness and disabilities across various media of popular culture. Contributors address how forms of psychiatric disorder have been addressed in film, on stage, and in literature, how popular culture genres are utilized to communicate often confusing and conflicted relationships with the mentally ill, and how popular cultures around the world reflect mental illness and disability. Analyses of sources as disparate as the Batman films, Broadway musicals and Nigerian home movies reveal how definitions of mental illness, mental health, and of psychology itself intersect with discourses on race, gender, law, capitalism, and globalization. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

"Being crazy" is generally a negative characterization today, yet many celebrated artists, leaders, and successful individuals have achieved greatness despite suffering from mental illness. This book explores the many different representations of mental illness that exist—and sometimes persist—in both traditional and new media across eras. Mental health professionals and advocates typically point a finger at pop culture for sensationalizing and stigmatizing mental illness, perpetuating stereotypes, and capitalizing on the increased anxiety that invariably follows mass shootings at schools, military bases, or workplaces; on public transportation; or at large public gatherings. While drugs or street gangs were once most often blamed for public violence, the upswing of psychotic perpetrators casts a harsher light on mental illness and commands media's attention. What aspects of popular culture could play a role in mental health across the nation? How accurate and influential are the various media representations of mental illness? Or are there unsung positive portrayals of mental illness? This standout work on the intersections of pop culture and mental illness brings informed perspectives and necessary context to the myriad topics within these important, timely, and controversial issues. Divided into five sections, the book covers movies; television; popular literature, encompassing novels, poetry, and memoirs; the visual arts, such as fine art, video games, comics, and graphic novels; and popular music, addressing lyrics and musicians' lives. Some of the essays reference multiple media, such as a filmic adaptation of a memoir or a video game adaptation of a story or characters that were originally in comics. With roughly 20 percent of U.S. citizens taking psychotropic prescriptions or carrying a psychiatric diagnosis, this timely topic is relevant to far more individuals than many people would admit.

Contemporary Hollywood films commonly use mental disorders as a magnifier by which social, political, or economic problems become enlarged in order to critique societal conditions. Cinema has a long history of amplifying human emotion or experience for dramatic effect. The heightened representations of people with mental disorder often elide one category of literal truths for the benefit of different moral or emotional reasons. With films like Fight Club, The Silence of the Lambs, The Dark Knight, and Black Swan, this book address characters identified by film or media as people who are crazy, mentally ill, developmentally delayed, insane, have autism spectrum disorder, associative personality disorder, or who have other mental disorders. Despite the vast array of differences in people’s experiences, film often marginalizes people with mental disorders in ways that make it important to be inclusive of these varied experiences. These characters also commonly become subject to the structures of hierarchy and control that actual people with mental disorders encounter. Cinematic patterns of control and oppression heavily influence the narratives of those considered crazy by the outside world.

From Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Kojak, and Melrose Place, from books, music, cartoons, advertising, and newspapers, we all derive our images of mental illness. These omnipresent media portrayals are at the least insensitive, inaccurate, and unfavorable and at the worst stigmatizing and pernicious. In this important book, Dr. Otto Wahl examines the prevalence, nature, and impact of such depictions, using numerous examples from film, television, and print media. He documents the remarkable frequency of these images and demonstrates how the media has stereotyped the mentally ill through exaggeration, misunderstanding, ridicule, and disrespect. Media Madness also shows the damaging consequences of such stereotypes - stigma, rejection, loss of self-esteem, reluctance to seek, accept, or reveal psychiatric treatment, discrimination, and restriction of opportunity. The forces that shape current images of mental illness are clarified, as are the efforts of organizations and individuals to combat such exploitation.

Communicating Mental Health: History, Contexts, and Perspectives explores mental health through the lens of the communication discipline. In the first section, contributors describe the major contributions of the communication discipline as it pertains to a broader perspective and stigma of mental health. In the second section, contributors investigate mental health through various narrative perspectives. In the third and fourth sections, contributors consider many applied contexts such as media, education, and family. At the conclusion, contributors discuss the ways in which future inquiries regarding mental health in the communication discipline can be investigated. Scholars of health communication, mental health, psychology, history, and sociology will find this volume particularly useful.

When we think about the "pictures in our heads" that media create and perpetuate, what images are we truly referencing? Issues of media stereotypes and representation (both past and present) are crucial to advancing media literacy. Media Stereotypes: From Ageism to Xenophobia becomes one-stop shopping for synthesizing what we know within the composite of stereotyping research in the United States. Utilizing a cast of top American scholars with deep roots in asking stereotype-based questions, this book is essential reading for those wishing to understand what we know about past and present media representations as well as those wishing to take the baton and continue to advance media stereotyping research in the future.

This book provides students and professionals in nursing and allied professions, in psychiatry, psychology and other related disciplines, with a theoretically grounded introduction to the ways in which our attitudes are shaped by the media.

Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.

This book makes a highly innovative contribution to overcoming the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness – still the heaviest burden both for those afflicted and those caring for them. The scene is set by the presentation of different fundamental perspectives on the problem of stigma and discrimination by researchers, consumers, families, and human rights experts. Current knowledge and practice used in reducing stigma are then described, with information on the programmes adopted across the world and their utility, feasibility, and effectiveness. The core of the volume comprises descriptions of new approaches and innovative programmes specifically designed to overcome stigma and discrimination. In the closing part of the book, the editors – all respected experts in the field – summarize some of the most important evidence- and experience-based recommendations for future action to successfully rewrite the long and burdensome ‘story’ of mental illness stigma and discrimination.

This volume examines the shift toward positive and more accurate portrayals of mental illness in entertainment media, asking where these succeed and considering where more needs to be done. With studies that identify and analyze the characters, viewpoints, and experiences of mental illness across film and television, it considers the messages conveyed about mental illness and reflects on how the different texts reflect, reinforce, or challenge sociocultural notions regarding mental illness. Presenting chapters that explore a range of texts from film and television, covering a variety of mental health conditions, including autism, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and more, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, and mental health.