I recommend the show Bojack Horsman for it's realistic portrayal of mental health. Also Recommend The Legend of Korra season 4 for it's realistic portrayal of recovering from trauma.
I'm conflicted on this one. Being autistic, my experience with the mental health system has been overwhelmingly negative, and since I'm not alone in this boat depictions that skew way towards the positive feel like propaganda. But on the other hand, demonising the system to give lay audiences a kick doesn't address any of its issues either, in both cases ND and mentally ill people ultimately get harmed. I think that, as with other media problems, the solution lies in letting those who have been through it actively participate in the telling of stories. And I mean a bunch as diverse as possible, mental health is as diverse as the human experience.
Yeah. Mental health services have improved for most groups a hell of a lot, and media presentations of them aren't good for the perception of mental health facilities or people who need them. General shittiness all around. ...And then autistic kids are subject to 40 hours of ABA (For those unaware, basically the equivalent of conversion therapy - based on same 'science', same inventor, same... Lack of effectiveness but the appearance from the outside to be effective... This past month I've read current reports about kids having food withheld until compliance, so...) a week and we still get 'oh the staff at this institution were abusing the residents' stories every couple of years for autism facilities such as Mendip House in 2019. Even ignoring the ineffectiveness of a lot of common techniques and treatments (mindfulness is a particular one that's apparently ineffective on autistic folk), lack of research on how medication impacts autistic people (and we're a group that seems to have a greater degree of hyper, hypo, and the real fun one of paradoxical, effectiveness of medication so it would be nice if someone would, you know, study how various forms of medication is likely to impact us - at least for the stuff that's for common comorbidities), leaving a lot of autistic people who know they need mental health services for things unrelated to their autism scrambling to find one of the handful of practicioners who actually understand how to help autistic people because of all the bs resulting in most services just being unsuited to our needs.
I reccomand in the flesh, its more a metapher buthas that ambialent akward feeling thats too familiar. rom the view of zombies on some meds that makes them not mindless and its also gay.And really good Otherwise there really should more it sucks but yeah better than leaning especially some stuff untreated. That akwards sucking and not pleasent thing, should be there more often. I am devided on lucifer and the asylum episode isnt too bad, through some tropes too. Lets pretend its a heavy guarded asylum. Many healthare system should of course catch up too.
I think it's mostly either propaganda how amazingly great and helpful mental institutions these days are or perpetuates the Cuckoo's nest asylum clichees that these days is quite outdated. In the media I haven't seen much in terms of a realistic portrayal of contemporary psychiatry or mental health problems in general.
It’s not a show or a movie, but the indie platformer Celeste helped me understand my own anxiety and self-doubt. The protagonist Madeline goes through a journey of literally climbing a mountain to prove her worth to herself while confronting her demons. The game is very difficult but the difficultly also ties very well into the themes. The gameplay is tight and the soundtrack is one of my favorites in all of video games. I’d highly recommend playing it if you haven’t done so.
Dr Seward (Patti Lapone) in Penny Dreadful was someone whom I wanted to be my Doctor. She was direct, to the point, not a mollycodler but also made it clear that mental illness was not shameful or wrong but just an illness.
Edit: this is my experience which is apparently waaaay different to others *Psychiatric hospital in media:* the mad are running the mad, haha, don't close your eyes because one of the loonies might appear in your room and jumpscare you and has to be dragged away by the guards! Also eat your pills or we'll hold you down and force them down your throat! *Psychiatric hospital in real life:* ...sitting around in a chair circle being bored, everyone talks so slowly and usually repeats the same thing. And nothing to do between sessions. And then there's Bobby who walks up and down the hall slowly half the time. You think he's weird, but then at least he's doing something, you're just sitting in your room counting how many times he passes your door. You should have brought a book. You can go for a walk, but you don't have the motivation, really. *meds in media:* "I don't want them!" "We'll just have to force you!!" (gets tied down and force fed pills) *meds in real life:* "uh... can i have something for my stress please?" "ok, how about these ones" In all seriousness yes, different countries have vastly different approaches, different shrinks have different approaches. (some vastly more barbaric than others as I am becoming quickly aware) Also ...history. Just... wtf history oh god you're locking people up and torturing them, not helping. damn. Also...I'm not even touching america where meds are apparently promoted in ads on tv and not chosen by your doctor?? And you have to pay for them?? I would like to see research done on positive-negative experiences based on country. Is it wrong to predict that america is worse in that regard than europe?
@@cjboyo I'm really sorry that happened to you. That sounds horrible! It's upsetting that some western places (that pretend to be the pinnacle of modernism in the world) still act so barbaric.
@@HotDogTimeMachine385 Yeah, that facitities usually suck,like hospitals, and there are abuses of power and cold sisters, but that should ner be so bad it portraits them as horror, at least other than the repepetie monotone enironment thats eah sucks butdoes help, i the us, thats most doctors should at least try. First world country yeah. : 3
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on a miniseries called "Takin Over the Asylum". It's an early David Tennant project about a Scottish mental hospital in the 90s, and while its depiction of the facility is in many ways negative, it feels more...mindfully negative? Like this is meant to be a message about how society treats and handles the mentally ill.
“Zombify the person” it’s kind of disturbing how fitting of a description that is. People who suffer from mental illness are 10x more likely to be the victim of violence than the perpetrator. Mentally ill people are still stigmatized as alien and panic attacks are still not understood by most people. (Hello Future Me has spoken extensively on the topic with a tremendous amount of research and YT continues to flag and demonetize his efforts) Sometimes we get a genuine portrayal like the video game Celeste (I know that isn’t a facility but just go with it) yet the most commonly known examples are things like TRIGGER WARNING! 13 Reasons Why, it was only a matter of time before someone brought it up. Despite all the criticism and the 28% increase in suicide rates following its release the show is still one of Netflix’s most popular shows. We need better promotion of good portrayals of mental health.
As a therapist myself, I cannot thank you enough for using your platform to make a video like this. I've had clients ask me so many questions that are genuine but badly misinformed about things like medications, hospitals, and how "crazy" I think they are. People are afraid of these things and certainly pop culture shares a portion of the blame.
I've never personally been sent to a psychiatric hospital, but my sister was Section 3 for most of a year, and every time I went there, it seemed like the most boring place possible. She can recite the entire script of Moana, because that's the only film everyone could agree on.
It is very boring. And very claustrophobic also. Between meals and activities lots of us would pace from one side of the area to the other over and over again. None of us where allowed our phones so the hospital phones were all we could use to call friends and family and they barely worked ...
Mental health funding is so poor that in most places in the US a psych ward is bedrooms, a nurse’s station, drug time, food time, and TV/‘activity’ time (those being games, coloring, cards-crap to pass the time.) The fact of the matter is that theres a kernel of truth in all of these examples and also at least a small hint of what we really need-namely actual psychiatric care while in-patient.
In defence of terminator 2, while Sarah was correct that a time travelling Austrian robot did try to kill her, that is a very outlandish and improbable thing to happen and I personally wouldn’t blame the doctors for thinking that she was delusional
Minor quibble, it’s “wheelchair users” not “people confined to wheelchairs.” Wheelchairs are, first and foremost, mobility devices, and are a way of moving around for people who wouldn’t be able to without them. It’s not a confinement for them, but freedom. Even if it is limited bc 30+ years of the ADA, and we still got ableist douchebags who refuse to comply, but that’s a whole other rant lmao. Using a wheelchair is still better than being confined to a home, tho.
One example that comes to mind is the psychiatrist in Ordinary People. It has been a while since I've seen it but he was very much the only person that could connect with Timothy Hutton's character positively and the film also deals with backsliding as I recall. The film is heavy but I recommend!
Well, hello, I have been in a mental ward, my home town isn't large enough to have an asylum. It was a lot like the bad depictions. The only effect that place had was to make me more crazy. Some of the nurses bitched about me and my mum when they thought we couldn't hear, the doctor who was "treating" me was such a dickhead he ignored all I had to say about my own well-being, I only got the side effects from any and all medication and that was ignored too. Oh, and there were so many drugs! Whenever I complained about the side effects they upped my dose. I was misdiagnosed with pretty much everything when in reality I started out being an overworked insomniac and stressed off my tits. And. They. Made. It. Worse. I've since moved and gotten into ADHD assessment, I've only had 2 appointments and nothing's clear yet but so far the lady seems understanding and the appointments are going well.
Been committed to a mental health facility myself for almost two months. They are needed but they should also be critiqued because well... at least the one I was at, didn't facilitate growth or improvement, but insulation and stasis. Yet, the only way to get out was to convince them that you were better, so I faked it, because I certainly wasn't. The best treatment for me wasn't medication, or counselling but a combination of group therapy and finding something I could pursue that I was passionate about. Before I was just following the expected path and failing. I was not happy, I didn't even know what could make me happy, I was just doing. Most people didn't even know I was miserable, because I was great at fitting in and "looking happy." Years of being bullied taught me to not draw attention to myself. I am not completely healthy, I might never be, but we do need to stop treating mental health as an individual's dilemma and see how society might have played its own part and address that. We still don't really address how crime also has social aspects or at least take major steps to address it.
This was a really great video! Interesting, and expressed some of the thoughts I have myself. As for my positive depiction of mental health help... it'd have to be LUCIFER I mean yes, there are comedic gags played against those themes, but ultimately, the mental health professional helps. A lot! Even helps the bloody Devil! As well as that, the mental health professional is a main character and so is shown to have her own struggles and triumphs; which I think goes another step forward in showing that literally anyone can suffer from these things and anyone can be helped. And on an aside, Lucifer is an extremely masculine-heavy character who doesn't quite take it seriously at the start, and so seeing his growth with getting help I feel is really positive for real life and particularly men not reaching out and talking. -Aaron :D
Oh, yeah. And Linda is a well-rounded character in her own right, not just "the therapist". One of the things I love about "Lucifer" is the character growth over the course of the series.
Forgot to mention this but one of Lucifer's main cast is a psychiatrist Lucifer sees, she's a good person often the voice of reason. The therapy Lucifer is shown to have every episode can have stumbling blocks but its due to the Lucifer not always being a great listener but he often comes round and its mostly shown to be nothing but a positive influence on him
I think one issue is that the media portrays the people in mental health facilities as DESERVING the horrible treatment they try and portray. OR- in a sympathetic, tragic light, like "of course they had mental illness, look at the treatment they received', which both degrades those with disabilities, as if that disability has made us 'lesser'. It also ignores that a great variety of individuals with such disabilities often don't end up in mental health facilities, but JAILS, where they face above-the-grain discrimination and abuse. I think it also suggests that atrocities are just endemic to mental health facilities, which risks actual improvement and discussion around the facilities in real life.
The thing about American Horror Story in particular is that none of the main patient characters were actually ill. There's a lot of separation there that is not great. Like "look how they're treating this lady just cause she's lesbian" juxtaposed with "this guy masturbates all the time lol isn't he creepy" is not a great look. I'm sure it wasn't intended that way but it can come across as "these people don't deserve to be treated like this, unlike all the Actually sick people". That said, it's very good and Lana winters is perfect.
@@sarahgent2674 I've never watched it, but seems pretty consistent with media depictions of asylums and institutions, based on the fear of 'normal' people being placed there. If it is such a fear, why not also work on making it better for the patients there?
I'd argue that pop culture depictions of those scary institutions are so far removed from reality that my brain doesn't even mentally link them. I'd compare it to US highschool movies which are about as close to my (European) school experience as Lord of the Rings.
I went to one of those Art Schools, where we studied different forms of artistic pursuits. Trust me it was nothing like the TV show Fame, which is what people kept asking me. It was a lot more boring actually, and pretty much like any regular school, except you didn't have gym, or sports teams. I do have real life experience with a mental health facility, in the US, but it was an outpatient type of place, where I would just pick up my meds and see my therapist about once a week.
The facility at the end of Perks of Being a Wallflower seemed to be a place that actually cared about the well being and mental improvement of the main character and is depicted as helping them deal with repressed PTSD. That being said the negative depictions and connotations can create barriers for people wanting to get help for mental illness, especially anxiety as you tend to imagine worst case scenarios, and pop culture gives ample depictions to feed into those fears.
My oldest friend is a psychiatrist. They're just people, granted highly trained and specialized people, but people. She doesn't constantly analyze me, or at least she doesn't tell me or change how she interacts with me if she does (since I'm not her patient and she isn't getting paid to). She loves off-color jokes, she watches anime, is sarcastic and jaded, she's just a quirky person, and she says many of her colleagues are similar in temperament, though obviously not exactly the same.
I remember watching an old movie about a woman being placed in a 1940s mental facility called The Snakepit, I later read the book which was based on a real story. That was as scary as hell watching the way the patients were treated. The Cracker Factory had a slightly more positive view of patients receiving help although it was told through the lens of the late 70s, it was far more positive than One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest which I think was one of Jack Nicholson's best movies. Bojack Horseman also shows a more realistic and positive view of mental and rehab as well as depression. Having a mother who suffered severe depression, I hate the way Hollywood uses mental health as a cheap joke, like when Thor in the Avengers movies was obviously suffering from depression and trauma. They did a little better with Tony Stark though. One of the most nightmarish depictions of an asylum, not yet made into a film is Arkham Asylum Serious House On Serious Earth. The artwork and story stay with you.
Thank you so much for making this video. As someone who, in my twenties, spent 11 months in a psychiatric outpatient unit recovering from a mental breakdown, I can honestly say it was the best thing that could ever have happened to me - and yes, I'm sure, to anybody who's never spent time in a mental health facility, that does sound like a weird/twisted thing to say. Yes, it was a traumatic time for me - but I remember doing a lot of laughing there too, mostly with other patients. The humour was possibly a little darker than you'd find out in the 'normal world,' but it was never sadistic or 'dangerous' - most often, it was the 'if you don't laugh, you'll cry' kind of humour. Without those 11 months within that facility, undergoing treatment that combined medication and therapy, I would not be the person I am today, or have been able to live the life I've lived since then, which has been mostly pretty good, overall. I'm not 'cured' of the two disorders I was diagnosed with - as you rightly say, most mental health conditions don't work that way - but, over the years, building further on the therapy I received, I've learned over time to manage my disorders. I don't see them as a 'curse' or something that makes my life a struggle; like you also said, my brain just works a little differently than most other people. 😊 While there are certainly grains of truth in the way mental health facilities are depicted in the media (for example, ECT DOES still happen, although it's a lot more humane these days than the media portrays, and I did know one Key Worker in the unit where I was who DID gaslight and emotionally manipulate patients, but she really was the only one, and she left about halfway through my time there,) there's a lot that is overblown and dramatized for the "Woooohh! Horr-ror!" effect, and it makes admitting to having a mental health condition (and certainly that you've received treatment in an official psychiatric facility for it) even more difficult for people who've been though that. We're not all loose cannons wandering un-vetted through the streets, potentially one step away from 'losing it' at the first signs of a stressful situation. I've never seen 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,' but this has definitely made me want to check it out!
Even though we don't see the medical professionals we do see a less trivialised depiction of mental health in the musical Dear Evan Hansen. I mean literally the second song of the show is about Social Anxiety and the show deals with the effects of Social Anxiety, Depression, grief and suicide and it is a show that opens dialogue about those topics. I myself have Anxiety and Social Anxiety and I have found a lot of comfort in this show. Waving Through A Window is a song that literally felt like somebody had gone inside my head and pulled out all the things I had been feeling and put it into actual words. You Will Be Found has really helped so many people feel less alone and is the slogan and tagline for the show. It is a show that has opened up conversations and dialogue about these topics and has had a real positive impact. It is soon to be made into a movie and there is a novelisation of the show and there is the sound track. While theatres are shut and we can't see the show deffo check out the sound track and the novel. Not a word wasted.
Quite a few years ago I watched a docu-series about mental health facilities ,which definitely changed views about such facilities. Views I that I didn't know I had. Patiens were shown being sent in for treatment, and in some cases bringing themselves in when they had certain "episodes". It was pretty enlightening. But yeah I grew up on a steady diet of those depictions, and even held such view after my own experiences with mental health facility. I was an outpatient ,and I didnt even have a negative experience. My therapist was very good, and kind.
the pop culture depiction of mental health facilities and just mental health in general, has made me terrified of getting help for a very long time. i ran from therapy as soon as i got a diagnosis, because i was terrified of getting sent to a facility. pop culture made me (for the most part, other things were in play too) terrified of getting help. and im working on that now
I liked the depiction of mental illness in Mr Robot. At the beginning, you are led to think that the shrink is a bit incompetent, but later on you realize how much has she been keeping in mind with each session, since she has to keep track of whom is she talking to.
Great video as always. I think we really don't talk about this enough, especially because we're not always aware of the impact these tropes have on our view of mental health etc. Negative or stereotypial depictions in media played a huge role in how I feel about my own autism diagnosis, but that is something that took me many years of shame and poor self esteem to understand, which is why it's so important to talk more about it. Side note: The top you're wearing looks FABULOUS on you, especially with that lipstick.
There should be more positive representations of mental health care, but I'd also love to see negative that sheds light on real, current problems. It's not all laughs or villainy, sometimes it's just struggle getting help that's actually helpful, and being able to afford that help. I can't think of any movies that did that well, but the "How to ADHD" video on how getting ADHD treatment isn't ADHD friendly was quite good at explaining parts of this. Side note: electroshock is a valid treatment, we've just refined it and use anesthesia now.
No, there should be more realistic representations of mental health care. Because a ton of it isn't exactly great. I want no advertisement run for modern psychiatry!
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest wasn't wildly inaccurate for the period, if one does a little digging. Some of the treatments for 'hysteria' as recently in 1974, involved some surgical interventions that sound closer to some WW2 camp (either German or Japanese, neither side of the Axis was 'nice') than even primitive healthcare.
Truth is, all of those portrayals are based on things that actually used to happen or still happen in some places... I am from Russia. In Russia, psychiatry is still very much used as a form of punishment, and a psychiatric diagnosis through the public free healthcare system is a permanent mark on your record that will prevent you from going to most universities, getting a driver's license, and adopting children. Even paid/private psychiatric care is atrociously outdated and often just exists to extract money from people. I was "treated" by multiple psychiatrists and therapists in my teenage years who called me a lazy brat, said I would never be able to even finish high school "with that attitude" (I'm now a grad student in STEM..........), and prescribed me chlorpromazine which is a first gen antipsychotic that very much does zombify you (I straight up don't remember half a year of my life) *for an anxiety disorder*. It is possible to find good healthcare - I was eventually diagnosed with autism (and finally correctly, cause that diagnosis has since been confirmed by two other specialists independently) and got great CBT for my anxiety disorders. However, same people somehow missed the fact that I was suffering from gender dysphoria. Also I only got my autism diagnosis after I did a shitton of research on it and came to the conclusion that it was indeed very likely, after which I specifically found the only specialist in Moscow at that time who was willing to assess adults for autism. And the only reason I got CBT is that again, through a ton of searching on google scholar I came to the conclusion it was the most effective and found a therapist who did only evidence based stuff. FYI a ton of therapists in Russia practice pseudoscientific methods such as hypnosis, holotropic breath, and conversion therapy for gay and trans people. After that I moved to Poland, at which point I figured out that I was trans and began to seek healthcare to physically transition. Once again this was an insanely difficult challenge since the vast majority of psychiatrists in Poland don't even know what gender dysphoria is (or actively talk about trans identity being a sin), and even those who specialize in it tend to have a very outdated view (e.g. refusing to prescribe HRT to trans people who aren't straight even though statistics show that straight people are actually a minority among trans individuals). There is also one very famous psychiatrist who is pretty lenient, but at a cost - he refuses to prescribe you anything unless you agree to pose naked for him while he takes photos... yeah. Through a combination of, again, a shitton of research and also sheer luck, I found one of the very few psychiatrists who was great and thorough and educated, and also a really great therapist who I continue to see at least once a month to this day. So I got proper mental healthcare out of the system at the end, but again, these are all private specialists! Yes even the guy who takes naked photos of people. tl;dr: All of these tropes actually describe my personal experience with the mental healthcare system as an Eastern European *perfectly*. The experience is that mental healthcare (in Russia and Poland) is mostly either used as punishment, ridiculously incompetent, or actively cruel to its patients - or all of it. You can find amazing people (those good specialists saved my life three times over tbh), but only if you can pay for it and are willing to do most of the work of figuring out what is evidence based practice and finding the only three specialists in your country who follow them.......
Off the top, Dr Wong from Rick and Morty. She is always professional during her sessions and she basically accurately explains the issues that trouble the other characters emotional and behavioural issues, and as an extension, explained the meta narrative of the characters in the show.
Favourite song is a tough one. A Diagnosis was my most played song of 2017 (I promise I'm mostly OK), Gettin' Bi is of course amazing, I Gave You A UTI was my introduction to the show and then Eleven O'clock and the final reprise of West Covina just get me every time.
I literally forgot the location in Silence of the Lambs was supposed to be a mental health facility. I 100% thought it was just a specialized high-security prison facility.
Haven't watched this video, but thank you for making it. I do not see this talked about enough. Psych hospitals are sucky enough without the stupid fictionalized stuff
I agree with your message, but sometimes mental health conditions do go away. Some people only experience one depressive episode, some people (like my own mother) experience bipolar for only a short time (often in the teens or twenties), etc. I agree that the long, uncertain treatment and chronic nature of many mental health conditions is part of what makes it hard for people to reckon with it. However, part of destigmatizing mental health treatment is recognizing all of the ways in which mental health manifests and legitimizing the “not so bad” issues.
My fiancée absolutely loves Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and I've seen a few episodes with her. She really identifies with the main character and it's helped her a great deal in terms of self-reflection.
I love love love Crazy Ex Girlfriend. It's one of my favorite shows of all time. It's so hard to pick a favorite song since I love so many of them for wildly different reasons. Let's have Intercourse is hilarious, Let's Generalize about Men is catchy and what got me into the show, Gettin' Bi is the new bi anthem, and Fit Hot Guys Have Problems Too is the anti-toxic masculinity song we need. If I had to pick a top three (because picking one is literally impossible for me), I'd say A Diagnosis for making me cry and being the most relatable song about mental illness I've ever heard (even if Rebecca is being a little too optimistic), Love's not a Game for giving every supporting character a place to shine, and Anti-Depressants are Not a Big Deal both for spreading awareness for anti-depressants and helping people not feel bad about taking them and making me feel a lot better about the show's perspective on medication (the early seasons of the show portrayed medication for mental health very negatively, so I like the show making it clear that her early medication didn't work because she was misdiagnosed, not because medicating is bad).
When I personally think of asylums I either think of bedlam the historical mental hospital or those creepy abandoned asylums you see in horror movies also because my best friend used to have an interest in creepy abandoned asylums ( yes my friends are a bit weird)
Unfortunately down here in Australia those pop culture depictions are 100% accurate for us. Our mental health system is incredibly fucked. Our services are unhelpful and our so-called "mental health professionals" are out if touch dipshits. In fact last year in Victoria (where I live), there was a royal commission that investigated the poor conditions of the state's services. The commission reported 3,200 cases of abuse, discrimination and corruption happening in our facilities. I myself have experienced our dodgy mental health system. When I was in high school, I began seeking therapy after developing depression and anxiety, which was brought on by the abuse I received from my parents and discrimination I endured at school because I previously went to a special school (for a learning disability which, as we later found out, I never fucking had). I saw three therapists over a three year period and not one of them tried to help me. The first one I saw made it obvious that she never wanted to be a therapist, and so put no effort in her job whatsoever. Every session we had she would just pretend to listen and throw in a half-hearted "Oh that's sad. Oh that's sad." The second therapist I had just wrote me off as a mad raving imbecile. She jumped to the conclusion that since I went to a special school everything I say must be total bullshit. She would spend our sessions undermining my problems, and basically trying to say that it's just my "disability" making me misunderstand things. And the last therapist I had showed me no empathy. He believed that having a mental illness made you a lesser human being, and spent our sessions trying to make me feel like scum of the earth. After that I gave up seeking help. Seeking treatment was more scarring than my actual mental illness. All in all, while the films like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Sucker Punch" might seem like fiction, for us Aussies, they're reality.
Discussion of portrayal of Mental Health Facilities is difficult since for many decades, those facilities weren't there to help anyone, just a place to dump the mentally ill, were human experimentation weren't unheard of, some of worst of real stories from mental asylums easily rival the worst horror stories set in asylums. So portrays of them, especially those not set in the present time, while often exaggerated, aren't far from the truth.
ive never read/see girl interrupted, but i was at inpatient at the same place the girl from that went to, and it was fully the best choice ive ever made. mental hospitals can be so good and im so thankful for the staff there, and i hate how the media demonizes that profession
Until I wound up in mental health facility, the negative to awful was my default. They were actually a huge help to straighten out my medication regiment and if I'm honest it was mostly boring. Although while there, I enjoyed hearing people's stories and the general interaction with folks who understand my mental health issues.
This is very interesting to me. Out of these examples ive seen joker and terminator 2. If you say asylum, i think of the hellhole type that i learned about the the history section of my psychology course but if you say mental institution/hospital i think of something that looks like terminator 2 and either destructive like in that movie or helpful like the place my teacher worked with people will schizophrenia. I think we definitely need more media portraying the helpful kind to combat the perception provided by horror movies, but also ones on historical asylums to educate people on what horrors used to happen (I’m referring to what went on in england as thats what i know) and that that was wrong and doesn’t (shouldn’t) happen nowadays.
Yeah, as I mentioned, there's absolutely historical basis for the "these places are awful and nobody should be put there" angle. But since that gives good shock value it remains a bit part of the perception despite how things have changed.
My lord, Arkham applies to all three of those depending on the writer. It has stupid, irresponsible or self-serving Staff, ie Hugo Strange, Johnathon Crane or even Harlem Quinzel. It’s basically just a prison. And it’s a nightmarish hell-hole depending on depiction.
Dr Linda on Lucifer seems to be a reasonably down-to-earth representation of a psychologist; or as down to earth as she can be, given the nature of her clients on the show.
Very rarely does Arkham actually try to help its inmates. In-universe it's a glorified risen to put crazy people, in a meta perspective it's a place to have them go until they get out again.
A minor objection on Next to Normal - I don't think medications are portrayed as ineffective. They work. But at the same time the musical focused heavily on the unpleasant side effects, and indeed the unpleasantness of the intended effect for someone with bipolar symptoms, which are all very real issues. However I guess the portrayal of real issues can sometimes be more dissuading than cheap horror schticks...
Crazy ex girlfriend is probably my favourite show of all time. So many great songs, but I have a special place in my heart for Oh My God I think I Like You.
Just finished all of Homeland and I am still processing. Every season but the last had a crisis leading to Carrie doubting herself at a critical moment. She ends up in hospitals many times and has ECT twice. The writing ALWAYS has her right, but her bipolar outbursts make her superiors not believe her. The writers constantly play with the trope of dark scary g-men trying to silence the truth, but the government spokes person denies it so you must be crazy. Carrie is a dark scary g-man and the CIA and many other agencies want to use her or quite her. How crazy is she really?
Does Terminator count as a depiction of gaslighting? After all the people working there genuinely think she is delusional (because she’s raving about to it’s from the future trying to kill her). They are not trying to convince her that her memory is wrong when they know it isn’t.
Easily one of the WORST Fictional depictions of a mental health facility I can think of is Sanctuary from Heroes In Crisis..... the Facility that Ruined Wally West in the DC Rebirth.
i def agree on most points. i was thinking though, it's interesting the depictions of eating disorder recovery in media, bc unlike a lot of other mental health facilities, they have a bit of a more positive light. maybe, bc depictions of ppl themselves eho have eating disorders aren't demonized and are actually a bit romanticized sorry if i derailed a bit to much from the point of this video, i just found that interesting
Great video. The only thing I would say is missing I guess, is a discussion of context. I know there are still issues with how mental health facilities and professionals are portrayed nowadays. But i think that with some of the examples listed, it's important to look at when the film's/TV shows were made, or what time period they're set in. Like back in the day, asylums were horrifying. People were treated awfully and had horrifying things done to them by professionals. Sometimes it was just a place to lock up people who were considered dangerous or who they didn't really know how to treat. Mental health just wasn't understood enough. And with things like Girl, Interrupted, I think it's important to acknowledge that it's based on a book which was written about the authors real life experiences. The film does change and dramatise it a bunch and the books portrayal is a tad more chill. But it's still based on a womens actual experience of going to a mental health facility. So the portrayal was more accurate to what that particular facility was like at that time. All that being said, I enjoyed the video :) just thought I'd have a ramble in the comments.
I was thinking about this topic in relation to horror and I feel that the appeal of using psychiatric hospitals as background for a horror story is the same reason there's many horror stories where atheists are punished for no believing in god (or no being christian), even though many of those stories are written by atheists (or non judeo-christian religions) is that horror sometimes comes from making something you believe into a lie (or turn something that should be good into evil). Lovecraft wanted to be a scientist (he would've been equaly poor) yet most of his stories punished curiosity. Shirley Jackson was an introvert (and later in her life she isolated herself), but many of her stories punished lonely people. Of course that depends on who is writing, in the Grand Guignol, it was common to use an psychiatric hospitals as a background for purely exploitative reasons. So in the horror genre I don't think we should avoid using psychiatric hospitals , but like you point out, we should do it with conscious of how that makes people perceive mental health.
P.S: And related to Arkham, I always thought that some villains overtime should get better in some shape of form. Like Poison Ivy (who has a way of helping the environment legally) or Harvey Dent (who has a dissociative dissorder and a bad relationship with his alter) could eventually be reinstated in society (even though in comics nothing lasts forever). The Riddler also could fit into that, but when that happened the writers couldn't even give him some form of redemption, instead they went for "struck in the head=cured".
It's difficult because, speaking from personal experience, tbh some mental health facilities and professionals are gas-lighting, insensitive and border-line abusive at times. Maybe it's art imitating life to an extent, at least with the less 'hell-hole nightmare' depictions anyway. That said, I know many people get true support and help from seeking out those same facilities and professionals so like you said it's not the individual depictions but the commonness of those depiction that's the harmful message here.
Well, this had been such a journey. I'm bipolar and autist (in some fashion, well it is a spectrum after all) and one of my fears includes mental health facilities my friend. Thank you.
psychologist here. some mental health issues are indeed curable. Not manageable but curable. But this is person-specific, not diagnosis-specific. Someone may suffer a single psychotic episode and go on to live a ''normal'' life. Someone else may struggle with psychosis for their entire lives. The same can be said of bipolar ,ocd and personality disorders.
I've never watch Changeling so I had to take a doubletake why wood the police do that 2 that woman wer they being paid wer they just insanely lazy and do they just grab a random kid I have oh so many questions mainly why
Hey Nathaniel (is that your name? I think that's your name. Is it? Am I remembering wrong and talking nonsense? Maybe. Correct me please.) I don't know if you do book review besides the video essays and Doctor Who reviews, but if, then I would like to make a request: Qualityland. I think you would like it. Also the marketing describes the book as "Douglas Adams meets 1984" and as a huge Adams fan, I'm sure you can determine whether the book does the claim justice.
Sorta good depiction as far as fecility and doctors goes. The Uninvited 2009 with Emily Browning. Begining and end of movie. I dont blame the doctors for missing stuff becouse of memoryloss and her meby beeing a psycopat and they are smart! like that
don't know if anyone else has brought it up but "Don Juan DeMarco" www.imdb.com/title/tt0112883/ at least managed to avoid the worst of the mental health tropes and was a fun watch, though it was years ago that I saw it and don't know how my attitudes might change about it. anyone else seen it? any thoughts?
I'm disappointed by the tone of this installment. The warning was a good idea but that doesn't make mental health a worthy topic for a Halloween dress up.
I recommend the show Bojack Horsman for it's realistic portrayal of mental health. Also Recommend The Legend of Korra season 4 for it's realistic portrayal of recovering from trauma.
To degree reall good,if some rushed nessesar at the end.Glsd someone likes it too.
I'm conflicted on this one.
Being autistic, my experience with the mental health system has been overwhelmingly negative, and since I'm not alone in this boat depictions that skew way towards the positive feel like propaganda.
But on the other hand, demonising the system to give lay audiences a kick doesn't address any of its issues either,
in both cases ND and mentally ill people ultimately get harmed.
I think that, as with other media problems, the solution lies in letting those who have been through it actively participate in the telling of stories. And I mean a bunch as diverse as possible, mental health is as diverse as the human experience.
Yeah. Mental health services have improved for most groups a hell of a lot, and media presentations of them aren't good for the perception of mental health facilities or people who need them. General shittiness all around.
...And then autistic kids are subject to 40 hours of ABA (For those unaware, basically the equivalent of conversion therapy - based on same 'science', same inventor, same... Lack of effectiveness but the appearance from the outside to be effective... This past month I've read current reports about kids having food withheld until compliance, so...) a week and we still get 'oh the staff at this institution were abusing the residents' stories every couple of years for autism facilities such as Mendip House in 2019.
Even ignoring the ineffectiveness of a lot of common techniques and treatments (mindfulness is a particular one that's apparently ineffective on autistic folk), lack of research on how medication impacts autistic people (and we're a group that seems to have a greater degree of hyper, hypo, and the real fun one of paradoxical, effectiveness of medication so it would be nice if someone would, you know, study how various forms of medication is likely to impact us - at least for the stuff that's for common comorbidities), leaving a lot of autistic people who know they need mental health services for things unrelated to their autism scrambling to find one of the handful of practicioners who actually understand how to help autistic people because of all the bs resulting in most services just being unsuited to our needs.
I reccomand in the flesh, its more a metapher buthas that ambialent akward feeling thats too familiar. rom the view of zombies on some meds that makes them not mindless and its also gay.And really good
Otherwise there really should more it sucks but yeah better than leaning especially some stuff untreated. That akwards sucking and not pleasent thing, should be there more often.
I am devided on lucifer and the asylum episode isnt too bad, through some tropes too. Lets pretend its a heavy guarded asylum.
Many healthare system should of course catch up too.
@@marocat4749 In the Flesh is so good.
Have you watched Atypical?
I think it's mostly either propaganda how amazingly great and helpful mental institutions these days are or perpetuates the Cuckoo's nest asylum clichees that these days is quite outdated. In the media I haven't seen much in terms of a realistic portrayal of contemporary psychiatry or mental health problems in general.
It’s not a show or a movie, but the indie platformer Celeste helped me understand my own anxiety and self-doubt. The protagonist Madeline goes through a journey of literally climbing a mountain to prove her worth to herself while confronting her demons. The game is very difficult but the difficultly also ties very well into the themes. The gameplay is tight and the soundtrack is one of my favorites in all of video games. I’d highly recommend playing it if you haven’t done so.
That game is so fascinating. My husband speed runs it so I've watched it a lot
I do hate how in superhero comics it's always just a way to make the hero a villain. They have mental health issues, this is a villain origin... Ugh.
Dr Seward (Patti Lapone) in Penny Dreadful was someone whom I wanted to be my Doctor.
She was direct, to the point, not a mollycodler but also made it clear that mental illness was not shameful or wrong but just an illness.
Edit: this is my experience which is apparently waaaay different to others
*Psychiatric hospital in media:* the mad are running the mad, haha, don't close your eyes because one of the loonies might appear in your room and jumpscare you and has to be dragged away by the guards! Also eat your pills or we'll hold you down and force them down your throat!
*Psychiatric hospital in real life:* ...sitting around in a chair circle being bored, everyone talks so slowly and usually repeats the same thing. And nothing to do between sessions. And then there's Bobby who walks up and down the hall slowly half the time. You think he's weird, but then at least he's doing something, you're just sitting in your room counting how many times he passes your door. You should have brought a book. You can go for a walk, but you don't have the motivation, really.
*meds in media:* "I don't want them!" "We'll just have to force you!!" (gets tied down and force fed pills)
*meds in real life:* "uh... can i have something for my stress please?" "ok, how about these ones"
In all seriousness yes, different countries have vastly different approaches, different shrinks have different approaches. (some vastly more barbaric than others as I am becoming quickly aware) Also ...history. Just... wtf history oh god you're locking people up and torturing them, not helping. damn.
Also...I'm not even touching america where meds are apparently promoted in ads on tv and not chosen by your doctor?? And you have to pay for them??
I would like to see research done on positive-negative experiences based on country. Is it wrong to predict that america is worse in that regard than europe?
Yeah... I got strip searched both times I went to the psych hospital. They are sucky and traumatic
@@cjboyo I'm really sorry that happened to you. That sounds horrible! It's upsetting that some western places (that pretend to be the pinnacle of modernism in the world) still act so barbaric.
@@HotDogTimeMachine385 Yeah, that facitities usually suck,like hospitals, and there are abuses of power and cold sisters, but that should ner be so bad it portraits them as horror, at least other than the repepetie monotone enironment thats eah sucks butdoes help, i the us, thats most doctors should at least try. First world country yeah. : 3
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on a miniseries called "Takin Over the Asylum". It's an early David Tennant project about a Scottish mental hospital in the 90s, and while its depiction of the facility is in many ways negative, it feels more...mindfully negative? Like this is meant to be a message about how society treats and handles the mentally ill.
Aliens and demons aside, I feel that AHS Asylum offers a good view of how facilities were run at one time.
“Zombify the person” it’s kind of disturbing how fitting of a description that is. People who suffer from mental illness are 10x more likely to be the victim of violence than the perpetrator. Mentally ill people are still stigmatized as alien and panic attacks are still not understood by most people. (Hello Future Me has spoken extensively on the topic with a tremendous amount of research and YT continues to flag and demonetize his efforts) Sometimes we get a genuine portrayal like the video game Celeste (I know that isn’t a facility but just go with it) yet the most commonly known examples are things like TRIGGER WARNING!
13 Reasons Why, it was only a matter of time before someone brought it up. Despite all the criticism and the 28% increase in suicide rates following its release the show is still one of Netflix’s most popular shows. We need better promotion of good portrayals of mental health.
13 reasons why has only gotten worse and worse as it went on.
They tried to make the guy who raped hannah into a sympathetic character last season.
As a therapist myself, I cannot thank you enough for using your platform to make a video like this. I've had clients ask me so many questions that are genuine but badly misinformed about things like medications, hospitals, and how "crazy" I think they are. People are afraid of these things and certainly pop culture shares a portion of the blame.
I've never personally been sent to a psychiatric hospital, but my sister was Section 3 for most of a year, and every time I went there, it seemed like the most boring place possible. She can recite the entire script of Moana, because that's the only film everyone could agree on.
It is very boring. And very claustrophobic also. Between meals and activities lots of us would pace from one side of the area to the other over and over again. None of us where allowed our phones so the hospital phones were all we could use to call friends and family and they barely worked ...
Mental health funding is so poor that in most places in the US a psych ward is bedrooms, a nurse’s station, drug time, food time, and TV/‘activity’ time (those being games, coloring, cards-crap to pass the time.) The fact of the matter is that theres a kernel of truth in all of these examples and also at least a small hint of what we really need-namely actual psychiatric care while in-patient.
@@gateauxq4604 As someone who has spent time there. That is 100% true
Yeah. I wonder how they can expect that mentally fragile people can get better in a place that would make any mentally healthy person uncomfortable.
Haven’t seen the show Crazy Ex-girlfriend, but one song that really stuck with me from listening to the Cast Recording on Spotify was “A Diagnosis”.
I quite liked the first psychiatrist in the show Monk.
In defence of terminator 2, while Sarah was correct that a time travelling Austrian robot did try to kill her, that is a very outlandish and improbable thing to happen and I personally wouldn’t blame the doctors for thinking that she was delusional
Minor quibble, it’s “wheelchair users” not “people confined to wheelchairs.” Wheelchairs are, first and foremost, mobility devices, and are a way of moving around for people who wouldn’t be able to without them. It’s not a confinement for them, but freedom. Even if it is limited bc 30+ years of the ADA, and we still got ableist douchebags who refuse to comply, but that’s a whole other rant lmao. Using a wheelchair is still better than being confined to a home, tho.
One example that comes to mind is the psychiatrist in Ordinary People. It has been a while since I've seen it but he was very much the only person that could connect with Timothy Hutton's character positively and the film also deals with backsliding as I recall. The film is heavy but I recommend!
Especially if you want to see Mary Tyler Moore playing against type....
Well, hello, I have been in a mental ward, my home town isn't large enough to have an asylum.
It was a lot like the bad depictions. The only effect that place had was to make me more crazy.
Some of the nurses bitched about me and my mum when they thought we couldn't hear, the doctor who was "treating" me was such a dickhead he ignored all I had to say about my own well-being, I only got the side effects from any and all medication and that was ignored too. Oh, and there were so many drugs! Whenever I complained about the side effects they upped my dose. I was misdiagnosed with pretty much everything when in reality I started out being an overworked insomniac and stressed off my tits.
And. They. Made. It. Worse.
I've since moved and gotten into ADHD assessment, I've only had 2 appointments and nothing's clear yet but so far the lady seems understanding and the appointments are going well.
Been committed to a mental health facility myself for almost two months. They are needed but they should also be critiqued because well... at least the one I was at, didn't facilitate growth or improvement, but insulation and stasis. Yet, the only way to get out was to convince them that you were better, so I faked it, because I certainly wasn't.
The best treatment for me wasn't medication, or counselling but a combination of group therapy and finding something I could pursue that I was passionate about. Before I was just following the expected path and failing. I was not happy, I didn't even know what could make me happy, I was just doing. Most people didn't even know I was miserable, because I was great at fitting in and "looking happy." Years of being bullied taught me to not draw attention to myself.
I am not completely healthy, I might never be, but we do need to stop treating mental health as an individual's dilemma and see how society might have played its own part and address that. We still don't really address how crime also has social aspects or at least take major steps to address it.
This was a really great video! Interesting, and expressed some of the thoughts I have myself. As for my positive depiction of mental health help... it'd have to be LUCIFER I mean yes, there are comedic gags played against those themes, but ultimately, the mental health professional helps. A lot! Even helps the bloody Devil! As well as that, the mental health professional is a main character and so is shown to have her own struggles and triumphs; which I think goes another step forward in showing that literally anyone can suffer from these things and anyone can be helped. And on an aside, Lucifer is an extremely masculine-heavy character who doesn't quite take it seriously at the start, and so seeing his growth with getting help I feel is really positive for real life and particularly men not reaching out and talking.
-Aaron :D
Oh, yeah. And Linda is a well-rounded character in her own right, not just "the therapist". One of the things I love about "Lucifer" is the character growth over the course of the series.
@@wmdkitty Definitely! :D
Forgot to mention this but one of Lucifer's main cast is a psychiatrist Lucifer sees, she's a good person often the voice of reason. The therapy Lucifer is shown to have every episode can have stumbling blocks but its due to the Lucifer not always being a great listener but he often comes round and its mostly shown to be nothing but a positive influence on him
I think one issue is that the media portrays the people in mental health facilities as DESERVING the horrible treatment they try and portray. OR- in a sympathetic, tragic light, like "of course they had mental illness, look at the treatment they received', which both degrades those with disabilities, as if that disability has made us 'lesser'. It also ignores that a great variety of individuals with such disabilities often don't end up in mental health facilities, but JAILS, where they face above-the-grain discrimination and abuse. I think it also suggests that atrocities are just endemic to mental health facilities, which risks actual improvement and discussion around the facilities in real life.
The thing about American Horror Story in particular is that none of the main patient characters were actually ill. There's a lot of separation there that is not great. Like "look how they're treating this lady just cause she's lesbian" juxtaposed with "this guy masturbates all the time lol isn't he creepy" is not a great look. I'm sure it wasn't intended that way but it can come across as "these people don't deserve to be treated like this, unlike all the Actually sick people". That said, it's very good and Lana winters is perfect.
@@sarahgent2674 I've never watched it, but seems pretty consistent with media depictions of asylums and institutions, based on the fear of 'normal' people being placed there. If it is such a fear, why not also work on making it better for the patients there?
I'd argue that pop culture depictions of those scary institutions are so far removed from reality that my brain doesn't even mentally link them. I'd compare it to US highschool movies which are about as close to my (European) school experience as Lord of the Rings.
Same. At most I link them to historical asylums, not current.
I went to one of those Art Schools, where we studied different forms of artistic pursuits. Trust me it was nothing like the TV show Fame, which is what people kept asking me. It was a lot more boring actually, and pretty much like any regular school, except you didn't have gym, or sports teams.
I do have real life experience with a mental health facility, in the US, but it was an outpatient type of place, where I would just pick up my meds and see my therapist about once a week.
The facility at the end of Perks of Being a Wallflower seemed to be a place that actually cared about the well being and mental improvement of the main character and is depicted as helping them deal with repressed PTSD. That being said the negative depictions and connotations can create barriers for people wanting to get help for mental illness, especially anxiety as you tend to imagine worst case scenarios, and pop culture gives ample depictions to feed into those fears.
My oldest friend is a psychiatrist. They're just people, granted highly trained and specialized people, but people. She doesn't constantly analyze me, or at least she doesn't tell me or change how she interacts with me if she does (since I'm not her patient and she isn't getting paid to). She loves off-color jokes, she watches anime, is sarcastic and jaded, she's just a quirky person, and she says many of her colleagues are similar in temperament, though obviously not exactly the same.
The show Atypical does a really good job of portraying mental health professionals relationship to their patients.
Honestly being committed to a mental hospital sounds relaxing af. No responsibilities and psychologists everywhere? Yes please
I remember watching an old movie about a woman being placed in a 1940s mental facility called The Snakepit, I later read the book which was based on a real story. That was as scary as hell watching the way the patients were treated. The Cracker Factory had a slightly more positive view of patients receiving help although it was told through the lens of the late 70s, it was far more positive than One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest which I think was one of Jack Nicholson's best movies. Bojack Horseman also shows a more realistic and positive view of mental and rehab as well as depression. Having a mother who suffered severe depression, I hate the way Hollywood uses mental health as a cheap joke, like when Thor in the Avengers movies was obviously suffering from depression and trauma. They did a little better with Tony Stark though. One of the most nightmarish depictions of an asylum, not yet made into a film is Arkham Asylum Serious House On Serious Earth. The artwork and story stay with you.
Thank you so much for making this video.
As someone who, in my twenties, spent 11 months in a psychiatric outpatient unit recovering from a mental breakdown, I can honestly say it was the best thing that could ever have happened to me - and yes, I'm sure, to anybody who's never spent time in a mental health facility, that does sound like a weird/twisted thing to say. Yes, it was a traumatic time for me - but I remember doing a lot of laughing there too, mostly with other patients. The humour was possibly a little darker than you'd find out in the 'normal world,' but it was never sadistic or 'dangerous' - most often, it was the 'if you don't laugh, you'll cry' kind of humour.
Without those 11 months within that facility, undergoing treatment that combined medication and therapy, I would not be the person I am today, or have been able to live the life I've lived since then, which has been mostly pretty good, overall. I'm not 'cured' of the two disorders I was diagnosed with - as you rightly say, most mental health conditions don't work that way - but, over the years, building further on the therapy I received, I've learned over time to manage my disorders. I don't see them as a 'curse' or something that makes my life a struggle; like you also said, my brain just works a little differently than most other people. 😊
While there are certainly grains of truth in the way mental health facilities are depicted in the media (for example, ECT DOES still happen, although it's a lot more humane these days than the media portrays, and I did know one Key Worker in the unit where I was who DID gaslight and emotionally manipulate patients, but she really was the only one, and she left about halfway through my time there,) there's a lot that is overblown and dramatized for the "Woooohh! Horr-ror!" effect, and it makes admitting to having a mental health condition (and certainly that you've received treatment in an official psychiatric facility for it) even more difficult for people who've been though that. We're not all loose cannons wandering un-vetted through the streets, potentially one step away from 'losing it' at the first signs of a stressful situation.
I've never seen 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,' but this has definitely made me want to check it out!
Even though we don't see the medical professionals we do see a less trivialised depiction of mental health in the musical Dear Evan Hansen. I mean literally the second song of the show is about Social Anxiety and the show deals with the effects of Social Anxiety, Depression, grief and suicide and it is a show that opens dialogue about those topics. I myself have Anxiety and Social Anxiety and I have found a lot of comfort in this show. Waving Through A Window is a song that literally felt like somebody had gone inside my head and pulled out all the things I had been feeling and put it into actual words. You Will Be Found has really helped so many people feel less alone and is the slogan and tagline for the show. It is a show that has opened up conversations and dialogue about these topics and has had a real positive impact. It is soon to be made into a movie and there is a novelisation of the show and there is the sound track. While theatres are shut and we can't see the show deffo check out the sound track and the novel. Not a word wasted.
Quite a few years ago I watched a docu-series about mental health facilities ,which definitely changed views about such facilities. Views I that I didn't know I had. Patiens were shown being sent in for treatment, and in some cases bringing themselves in when they had certain "episodes". It was pretty enlightening.
But yeah I grew up on a steady diet of those depictions, and even held such view after my own experiences with mental health facility. I was an outpatient ,and I didnt even have a negative experience. My therapist was very good, and kind.
the pop culture depiction of mental health facilities and just mental health in general, has made me terrified of getting help for a very long time. i ran from therapy as soon as i got a diagnosis, because i was terrified of getting sent to a facility. pop culture made me (for the most part, other things were in play too) terrified of getting help. and im working on that now
I liked the depiction of mental illness in Mr Robot. At the beginning, you are led to think that the shrink is a bit incompetent, but later on you realize how much has she been keeping in mind with each session, since she has to keep track of whom is she talking to.
Great video as always. I think we really don't talk about this enough, especially because we're not always aware of the impact these tropes have on our view of mental health etc. Negative or stereotypial depictions in media played a huge role in how I feel about my own autism diagnosis, but that is something that took me many years of shame and poor self esteem to understand, which is why it's so important to talk more about it.
Side note: The top you're wearing looks FABULOUS on you, especially with that lipstick.
There should be more positive representations of mental health care, but I'd also love to see negative that sheds light on real, current problems. It's not all laughs or villainy, sometimes it's just struggle getting help that's actually helpful, and being able to afford that help. I can't think of any movies that did that well, but the "How to ADHD" video on how getting ADHD treatment isn't ADHD friendly was quite good at explaining parts of this.
Side note: electroshock is a valid treatment, we've just refined it and use anesthesia now.
No, there should be more realistic representations of mental health care. Because a ton of it isn't exactly great. I want no advertisement run for modern psychiatry!
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest wasn't wildly inaccurate for the period, if one does a little digging. Some of the treatments for 'hysteria' as recently in 1974, involved some surgical interventions that sound closer to some WW2 camp (either German or Japanese, neither side of the Axis was 'nice') than even primitive healthcare.
Truth is, all of those portrayals are based on things that actually used to happen or still happen in some places... I am from Russia. In Russia, psychiatry is still very much used as a form of punishment, and a psychiatric diagnosis through the public free healthcare system is a permanent mark on your record that will prevent you from going to most universities, getting a driver's license, and adopting children. Even paid/private psychiatric care is atrociously outdated and often just exists to extract money from people. I was "treated" by multiple psychiatrists and therapists in my teenage years who called me a lazy brat, said I would never be able to even finish high school "with that attitude" (I'm now a grad student in STEM..........), and prescribed me chlorpromazine which is a first gen antipsychotic that very much does zombify you (I straight up don't remember half a year of my life) *for an anxiety disorder*.
It is possible to find good healthcare - I was eventually diagnosed with autism (and finally correctly, cause that diagnosis has since been confirmed by two other specialists independently) and got great CBT for my anxiety disorders. However, same people somehow missed the fact that I was suffering from gender dysphoria. Also I only got my autism diagnosis after I did a shitton of research on it and came to the conclusion that it was indeed very likely, after which I specifically found the only specialist in Moscow at that time who was willing to assess adults for autism. And the only reason I got CBT is that again, through a ton of searching on google scholar I came to the conclusion it was the most effective and found a therapist who did only evidence based stuff. FYI a ton of therapists in Russia practice pseudoscientific methods such as hypnosis, holotropic breath, and conversion therapy for gay and trans people.
After that I moved to Poland, at which point I figured out that I was trans and began to seek healthcare to physically transition. Once again this was an insanely difficult challenge since the vast majority of psychiatrists in Poland don't even know what gender dysphoria is (or actively talk about trans identity being a sin), and even those who specialize in it tend to have a very outdated view (e.g. refusing to prescribe HRT to trans people who aren't straight even though statistics show that straight people are actually a minority among trans individuals). There is also one very famous psychiatrist who is pretty lenient, but at a cost - he refuses to prescribe you anything unless you agree to pose naked for him while he takes photos... yeah. Through a combination of, again, a shitton of research and also sheer luck, I found one of the very few psychiatrists who was great and thorough and educated, and also a really great therapist who I continue to see at least once a month to this day. So I got proper mental healthcare out of the system at the end, but again, these are all private specialists! Yes even the guy who takes naked photos of people.
tl;dr: All of these tropes actually describe my personal experience with the mental healthcare system as an Eastern European *perfectly*. The experience is that mental healthcare (in Russia and Poland) is mostly either used as punishment, ridiculously incompetent, or actively cruel to its patients - or all of it. You can find amazing people (those good specialists saved my life three times over tbh), but only if you can pay for it and are willing to do most of the work of figuring out what is evidence based practice and finding the only three specialists in your country who follow them.......
Off the top, Dr Wong from Rick and Morty. She is always professional during her sessions and she basically accurately explains the issues that trouble the other characters emotional and behavioural issues, and as an extension, explained the meta narrative of the characters in the show.
incredibly minor but stuck in my head. In the Doctor Who episode 'Can you hear me' the place in Syria (before it got attacked) looked really good
Surprised you resisted at least a passing mention of the Dalek asylum.
Favourite song is a tough one. A Diagnosis was my most played song of 2017 (I promise I'm mostly OK), Gettin' Bi is of course amazing, I Gave You A UTI was my introduction to the show and then Eleven O'clock and the final reprise of West Covina just get me every time.
Netflix's Iron Fist's mental hospital episode frustrated me so much. Like, it did everything possible wrong.
I literally forgot the location in Silence of the Lambs was supposed to be a mental health facility. I 100% thought it was just a specialized high-security prison facility.
Haven't watched this video, but thank you for making it. I do not see this talked about enough. Psych hospitals are sucky enough without the stupid fictionalized stuff
I agree with your message, but sometimes mental health conditions do go away. Some people only experience one depressive episode, some people (like my own mother) experience bipolar for only a short time (often in the teens or twenties), etc. I agree that the long, uncertain treatment and chronic nature of many mental health conditions is part of what makes it hard for people to reckon with it. However, part of destigmatizing mental health treatment is recognizing all of the ways in which mental health manifests and legitimizing the “not so bad” issues.
My fiancée absolutely loves Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and I've seen a few episodes with her. She really identifies with the main character and it's helped her a great deal in terms of self-reflection.
I love love love Crazy Ex Girlfriend. It's one of my favorite shows of all time. It's so hard to pick a favorite song since I love so many of them for wildly different reasons. Let's have Intercourse is hilarious, Let's Generalize about Men is catchy and what got me into the show, Gettin' Bi is the new bi anthem, and Fit Hot Guys Have Problems Too is the anti-toxic masculinity song we need. If I had to pick a top three (because picking one is literally impossible for me), I'd say A Diagnosis for making me cry and being the most relatable song about mental illness I've ever heard (even if Rebecca is being a little too optimistic), Love's not a Game for giving every supporting character a place to shine, and Anti-Depressants are Not a Big Deal both for spreading awareness for anti-depressants and helping people not feel bad about taking them and making me feel a lot better about the show's perspective on medication (the early seasons of the show portrayed medication for mental health very negatively, so I like the show making it clear that her early medication didn't work because she was misdiagnosed, not because medicating is bad).
When I personally think of asylums I either think of bedlam the historical mental hospital or those creepy abandoned asylums you see in horror movies also because my best friend used to have an interest in creepy abandoned asylums ( yes my friends are a bit weird)
Unfortunately down here in Australia those pop culture depictions are 100% accurate for us. Our mental health system is incredibly fucked. Our services are unhelpful and our so-called "mental health professionals" are out if touch dipshits. In fact last year in Victoria (where I live), there was a royal commission that investigated the poor conditions of the state's services. The commission reported 3,200 cases of abuse, discrimination and corruption happening in our facilities. I myself have experienced our dodgy mental health system. When I was in high school, I began seeking therapy after developing depression and anxiety, which was brought on by the abuse I received from my parents and discrimination I endured at school because I previously went to a special school (for a learning disability which, as we later found out, I never fucking had). I saw three therapists over a three year period and not one of them tried to help me. The first one I saw made it obvious that she never wanted to be a therapist, and so put no effort in her job whatsoever. Every session we had she would just pretend to listen and throw in a half-hearted "Oh that's sad. Oh that's sad." The second therapist I had just wrote me off as a mad raving imbecile. She jumped to the conclusion that since I went to a special school everything I say must be total bullshit. She would spend our sessions undermining my problems, and basically trying to say that it's just my "disability" making me misunderstand things. And the last therapist I had showed me no empathy. He believed that having a mental illness made you a lesser human being, and spent our sessions trying to make me feel like scum of the earth. After that I gave up seeking help. Seeking treatment was more scarring than my actual mental illness. All in all, while the films like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Sucker Punch" might seem like fiction, for us Aussies, they're reality.
Discussion of portrayal of Mental Health Facilities is difficult since for many decades, those facilities weren't there to help anyone, just a place to dump the mentally ill, were human experimentation weren't unheard of, some of worst of real stories from mental asylums easily rival the worst horror stories set in asylums. So portrays of them, especially those not set in the present time, while often exaggerated, aren't far from the truth.
ive never read/see girl interrupted, but i was at inpatient at the same place the girl from that went to, and it was fully the best choice ive ever made. mental hospitals can be so good and im so thankful for the staff there, and i hate how the media demonizes that profession
Until I wound up in mental health facility, the negative to awful was my default. They were actually a huge help to straighten out my medication regiment and if I'm honest it was mostly boring. Although while there, I enjoyed hearing people's stories and the general interaction with folks who understand my mental health issues.
This is very interesting to me. Out of these examples ive seen joker and terminator 2. If you say asylum, i think of the hellhole type that i learned about the the history section of my psychology course but if you say mental institution/hospital i think of something that looks like terminator 2 and either destructive like in that movie or helpful like the place my teacher worked with people will schizophrenia. I think we definitely need more media portraying the helpful kind to combat the perception provided by horror movies, but also ones on historical asylums to educate people on what horrors used to happen (I’m referring to what went on in england as thats what i know) and that that was wrong and doesn’t (shouldn’t) happen nowadays.
Yeah, as I mentioned, there's absolutely historical basis for the "these places are awful and nobody should be put there" angle. But since that gives good shock value it remains a bit part of the perception despite how things have changed.
My lord, Arkham applies to all three of those depending on the writer. It has stupid, irresponsible or self-serving Staff, ie Hugo Strange, Johnathon Crane or even Harlem Quinzel. It’s basically just a prison. And it’s a nightmarish hell-hole depending on depiction.
Dr Linda on Lucifer seems to be a reasonably down-to-earth representation of a psychologist; or as down to earth as she can be, given the nature of her clients on the show.
While you offer great choices, my number 2 and number 3 respectively... the best song is What'll It Be (Hey West Covina)
Very rarely does Arkham actually try to help its inmates. In-universe it's a glorified risen to put crazy people, in a meta perspective it's a place to have them go until they get out again.
A minor objection on Next to Normal - I don't think medications are portrayed as ineffective. They work. But at the same time the musical focused heavily on the unpleasant side effects, and indeed the unpleasantness of the intended effect for someone with bipolar symptoms, which are all very real issues. However I guess the portrayal of real issues can sometimes be more dissuading than cheap horror schticks...
Crazy ex girlfriend is probably my favourite show of all time. So many great songs, but I have a special place in my heart for Oh My God I think I Like You.
Absolutely love that show. Particularly partial to 'no-one else is singing my song' and 'antidepressants are so not a big deal'
Just finished all of Homeland and I am still processing. Every season but the last had a crisis leading to Carrie doubting herself at a critical moment. She ends up in hospitals many times and has ECT twice. The writing ALWAYS has her right, but her bipolar outbursts make her superiors not believe her. The writers constantly play with the trope of dark scary g-men trying to silence the truth, but the government spokes person denies it so you must be crazy. Carrie is a dark scary g-man and the CIA and many other agencies want to use her or quite her. How crazy is she really?
Does Terminator count as a depiction of gaslighting? After all the people working there genuinely think she is delusional (because she’s raving about to it’s from the future trying to kill her). They are not trying to convince her that her memory is wrong when they know it isn’t.
Easily one of the WORST Fictional depictions of a mental health facility I can think of is Sanctuary from Heroes In Crisis..... the Facility that Ruined Wally West in the DC Rebirth.
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i def agree on most points. i was thinking though, it's interesting the depictions of eating disorder recovery in media, bc unlike a lot of other mental health facilities, they have a bit of a more positive light. maybe, bc depictions of ppl themselves eho have eating disorders aren't demonized and are actually a bit romanticized
sorry if i derailed a bit to much from the point of this video, i just found that interesting
For many many years I was afraid to see a therapist for fear of being locked up or something
Great video. The only thing I would say is missing I guess, is a discussion of context. I know there are still issues with how mental health facilities and professionals are portrayed nowadays. But i think that with some of the examples listed, it's important to look at when the film's/TV shows were made, or what time period they're set in. Like back in the day, asylums were horrifying. People were treated awfully and had horrifying things done to them by professionals. Sometimes it was just a place to lock up people who were considered dangerous or who they didn't really know how to treat. Mental health just wasn't understood enough.
And with things like Girl, Interrupted, I think it's important to acknowledge that it's based on a book which was written about the authors real life experiences. The film does change and dramatise it a bunch and the books portrayal is a tad more chill. But it's still based on a womens actual experience of going to a mental health facility. So the portrayal was more accurate to what that particular facility was like at that time.
All that being said, I enjoyed the video :) just thought I'd have a ramble in the comments.
Also, I adore Crazy Ex Girlfriend. One of my favourite song from it atm is 'I'm not sad, your sad'
I was thinking about this topic in relation to horror and I feel that the appeal of using psychiatric hospitals as background for a horror story is the same reason there's many horror stories where atheists are punished for no believing in god (or no being christian), even though many of those stories are written by atheists (or non judeo-christian religions) is that horror sometimes comes from making something you believe into a lie (or turn something that should be good into evil). Lovecraft wanted to be a scientist (he would've been equaly poor) yet most of his stories punished curiosity. Shirley Jackson was an introvert (and later in her life she isolated herself), but many of her stories punished lonely people. Of course that depends on who is writing, in the Grand Guignol, it was common to use an psychiatric hospitals as a background for purely exploitative reasons. So in the horror genre I don't think we should avoid using psychiatric hospitals , but like you point out, we should do it with conscious of how that makes people perceive mental health.
P.S: And related to Arkham, I always thought that some villains overtime should get better in some shape of form. Like Poison Ivy (who has a way of helping the environment legally) or Harvey Dent (who has a dissociative dissorder and a bad relationship with his alter) could eventually be reinstated in society (even though in comics nothing lasts forever). The Riddler also could fit into that, but when that happened the writers couldn't even give him some form of redemption, instead they went for "struck in the head=cured".
It's difficult because, speaking from personal experience, tbh some mental health facilities and professionals are gas-lighting, insensitive and border-line abusive at times. Maybe it's art imitating life to an extent, at least with the less 'hell-hole nightmare' depictions anyway. That said, I know many people get true support and help from seeking out those same facilities and professionals so like you said it's not the individual depictions but the commonness of those depiction that's the harmful message here.
Well, this had been such a journey. I'm bipolar and autist (in some fashion, well it is a spectrum after all) and one of my fears includes mental health facilities my friend. Thank you.
psychologist here. some mental health issues are indeed curable. Not manageable but curable. But this is person-specific, not diagnosis-specific. Someone may suffer a single psychotic episode and go on to live a ''normal'' life. Someone else may struggle with psychosis for their entire lives. The same can be said of bipolar ,ocd and personality disorders.
I'd recommend the show Taking over the asylum starring David Tennant. Its free on CZcams.
I Gave You a UTI Getting Bi and Nothing is Ever Anyone’s Fault
I'm quite partial to "We Tapped That Ass (All Over This House)"
I've never watch Changeling so I had to take a doubletake why wood the police do that 2 that woman wer they being paid wer they just insanely lazy and do they just grab a random kid I have oh so many questions mainly why
Hey Nathaniel (is that your name? I think that's your name. Is it? Am I remembering wrong and talking nonsense? Maybe. Correct me please.) I don't know if you do book review besides the video essays and Doctor Who reviews, but if, then I would like to make a request: Qualityland. I think you would like it. Also the marketing describes the book as "Douglas Adams meets 1984" and as a huge Adams fan, I'm sure you can determine whether the book does the claim justice.
God, you look CRAZY GORGEOUS today. Love the eyes.
Sorta good depiction as far as fecility and doctors goes. The Uninvited 2009 with Emily Browning. Begining and end of movie. I dont blame the doctors for missing stuff becouse of memoryloss and her meby beeing a psycopat and they are smart! like that
I'm a writer I have one book out, and I am working on doing mental health workers right in the books.
I for one would not want to stay in a ward run by Kai Winn.
The Miscavige Institute For The Criminally Insane is worse.
MUCH worse
don't know if anyone else has brought it up but "Don Juan DeMarco" www.imdb.com/title/tt0112883/ at least managed to avoid the worst of the mental health tropes and was a fun watch, though it was years ago that I saw it and don't know how my attitudes might change about it. anyone else seen it? any thoughts?
Frashier had good deprecation of psychology.
Happy Halloween
You need to stop scarousing me.
Oh hush, you like it.
I extend my sympathy to your right eye.
I'm disappointed by the tone of this installment. The warning was a good idea but that doesn't make mental health a worthy topic for a Halloween dress up.