Written by: Brynn Legros
Edited by: Amrutha Reddy
This article will discuss the portrayal of Schizophrenia in film and how inaccurate representations of the illness increase the amount of stigma against individuals with a Schizophrenia diagnosis.
OVERVIEW OF SCHIZOPHRENIA:
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder in which individuals present with symptoms of delusions, hallucinations, disorganized behavior, and loss of touch with reality. It is often a severe diagnosis with a poor prognosis and is one of the less common psychiatric disorders, but also one of the most complex. Among those who have received a schizophrenia diagnosis, there is something called clinical heterogeneity. This means that within a group of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, no two individuals will present with the same symptoms. There is also a fair amount of clinical heterogeneity in one individual with schizophrenia because symptoms are always changing and have high degrees of variability. If that itself doesn’t explain the complexity of schizophrenia, there is also a huge degree of variability in comorbid disorders that can change the presentation of an individual. Comorbid disorders are secondary diagnoses most commonly presented in those who have schizophrenia. Commonly, people diagnosed with Schizophrenia are also diagnosed with mood disorders such as depression and mania or anxiety disorders. There is also no truly known cause of schizophrenia, and many believe that it actually consists of a spectrum of disorders, hence why it is listed under the “Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders” chapter of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, otherwise known as the DSM-5.
So why is it important to raise awareness about the complexity of schizophrenia and the variability in presentation of symptoms? People who have a diagnosis of Schizophrenia experience stigma more than any other mental disorder. This was shown in a data analysis by an article by ScienceDirect where it is stated, “A total of 38 articles published from 1999 to 2019 and involving 10,926 MHP (Mental Health Professionals) fulfilled our inclusion criteria. Studies showed that schizophrenia is the most stigmatized mental illness in MHP…” (Valery and Prouteau).
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN STIGMA AND FILM:
Film is a domain in which most people are very familiar with. We tend to watch movies for the purpose of entertainment, which is why so many successful films have an incorporated drama factor. However, we often forget that what happens in film is not always reflective of reality. In an article about the psychological and cognitive impacts of film by the British Journal of Aesthetics it is stated, “Perceiving typically leads automatically to the formation of perceptual beliefs. By describing the process as automatic, I mean that the subject does not voluntarily initiate it, and cannot cancel it” (Quilty-Dunn). This quote from an article about the cognitive impacts of film basically explains the phenomenon in which what we perceive in film does actually have an effect on how we perceive reality. Therefore, if a film focused on schizophrenia depicts a character experiencing symptoms as a dangerous and harmful individual, there is always going to be an adverse and overwhelmingly negative impact on the way that illness is perceived by viewers. This idea is backed up by PhD. Patricia Owen, “Entertainment media are often cited as an important source of information about mental illness. These media, however, have been widely criticized for their negatively stereotypic and inaccurate depictions of mental illness (1,2). Movies, in particular, have been faulted for misrepresenting mental illness and perpetuating stereotypes (3).” Movies like Fight Club or Donnie Darko along with several others create stigma by falsely portraying individuals with schizophrenia as dangerous, dark and creepy. These movies push a dangerous narrative that leads to misconceptions and incorrect perceptions about the reality of schizophrenia which in turn, harms the community of individuals that have this mental illness. One of the ways that film often inaccurately depicts schizophrenia actually has to do with demographics. Almost every movie that depicts schizophrenia including the ones previously mentioned, depict the character as a white male. This was analyzed by PhD. Patricia R. Owen in an article with Psychiatry Online, “Forty-two characters from 41 movies were identified, a majority of whom were male and Caucasian” (Owen). This is particularly harmful because it puts forth the idea that the only people who can portray symptoms of schizophrenia are white men, leaving out every other demographic of people who can experience schizophrenia world-wide. It was also shown that films do not do an accurate job of portraying negative symptoms; flat affect, loss of interest in goal directed activity, catatonia or loss of pleasure and mostly focuses on the extreme sides of positive symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions and loss of touch with reality. Dr. Owen states, “Critics have faulted movies for their emphasis on the grossly disorganized and bizarre behaviors of characters with schizophrenia, many of whom are shown experiencing vivid visual hallucinations (4,16). In reality, although some schizophrenia symptoms may be bizarre and grossly disorganized, the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, such as affective flattening and avolition, are more prominent, and auditory hallucinations are far more prevalent than visual hallucinations (13).”
CONCLUSION:
The way that schizophrenia is portrayed in film is mostly inaccurate. Therefore it is important to stay educated on what schizophrenia and other mental illnesses can look like to avoid what we perceive in film from becoming how we perceive reality. Schizophrenia should not be used in film to add drama, but to accurately show the complexity and variation of the illness in ways that do not negatively portray individuals suffering with mental illness, specifically schizophrenia.
References:
Owen, P. R., PhD. (2012). Portrayals of Schizophrenia by Entertainment Media. Psychiatry Online. https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ps.201100371
McCutcheon RA, Reis Marques T, Howes OD. Schizophrenia—An Overview. JAMA Psychiatry. 2020;77(2):201–210. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.3360
Owen , P. R., PhD. (2007). Dispelling Myths About Schizophrenia Using Film. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 37(1). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.0021-9029.2007.00147.x
Valare, K. M. (2020). Schizophrenia stigma in mental health professionals and associated factors: A systematic review. Psychiatry Research, 290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113068.
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