Free Essay on Mental Health and the Media

Media has highly contributed to how people and society deal with the issue of mental illness. It has contributed to a mental illness stigma through exaggerated, inaccurate, and comic images that are used to portray persons with psychiatric disorders as well as providing information about mental illness. On the same case, media has also been noted to report about mental illness in a responsible, accurate and balanced way. It has helped the community to better understand the experience of mental illness by including the perspective of people with mental illness, caregivers, and mental health workers and encouraging help-seeking behavior. The paper is going to consider evaluating the quality of coverage, accuracy/inaccuracy of information, and assumptions made about mental illness from various articles.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Chen, Marian, and Stephen Lawrie. "Newspaper depictions of mental and physical health." BJPsych bulletin 41.6 (2017): 308-313.

Chen and Stephen (2017), in their article focus on covering concerning the depictions of newspaper on mental health. The information is well presented as they highlight on why media has been recognized as a factor misleading towards mental illness. In order to support their argument, they conducted various campaigns to show how the impact of mental health care can be evaluated towards positive outcomes. The study has shown on how mental health in print media has continued to remain contaminated by violence themes and also provides reports on improvement in the recent years, and how a voice for people with mental illness has been provided.

The article is a good source to understand how media channels such as newspapers have become influential in transmitting key information and ideas, including social commentary. For example, they have taken up the role to report on mental illness making it an effective channel through which the public and especially those with insufficient knowledge regarding mental illness learn and come into contact with issues surrounding mental health. Justification of the argument on why media has become deeply prejudiced in demonstrating a misleading link and negative portrayals and the psychiatric diagnoses are well represented.

Chekroud, Adam M., Hieronimus Loho, and John H. Krystal. "Mental illness and mental health." The Lancet Psychiatry 4.4 (2017): 276-277.

The magazine article, 'Mental illness and mental health', by Chekroud, Loho, and Krystal brings us to the perception of how the word mental illness has been used. It is an article that one can enjoy the discussion and confidently agree that efforts must continue to be made towards reducing the stigma that is associated with mental illness. It is a good source to learn on how psychiatry has been facing terrific obstacles towards ensuring that patients are provided with effective treatments as per their needs even those that are related to stigma. The article well gives information and explains the relative dominance of mental health and defining the various responsibility of health-care attendants based on the illness they treat and their intended achievements.

Tirintica, Andreea Raluca, et al. "Factors that influence access to mental health services in South-Eastern Europe." International journal of mental health systems 12.1 (2018): 75.

The journal article, 'Factors that influence access to mental health services in South-Eastern Europe' provides a good overview of how the access of mental health services has been unequally distributed in the world and why change is required. The authors of this article have used Europe as an example to support this claim. Information includes also on how the media has tried to highlight and inform the society on the stigma-related mental health knowledge that is related to approaches towards mental health problems.

The study in the article is well covered as the authors also describe different surveys, for example, that of the U.S. which indicates that only a few numbers of patients in a large group of those with mental illness decide to seek for medical help. Good evidence is provided regarding the stigma and the doubt of psychiatric treatment as the most significant factors manipulating the delay. The authors give a reason as to why most individuals with mental illness fail to receive treatment which is due to factors such stigmatization fear for having the illness and believe that it is isolation from society.

Works Cited

Chen, Marian, and Stephen Lawrie. "Newspaper depictions of mental and physical health." BJPsych bulletin 41.6 (2017): 308-313.

Chekroud, Adam M., Hieronimus Loho, and John H. Krystal. "Mental illness and mental health." The Lancet Psychiatry 4.4 (2017): 276-277.

Tirintica, Andreea Raluca, et al. "Factors that influence access to mental health services in South-Eastern Europe." International journal of mental health systems 12.1 (2018): 75.