New Shift report looks at portrayals of mental illness in TV drama

[Shift]

Making Drama out of a Crisis: Authentic Portrayals of Mental Illness
in TV Drama

A new study published by Shift finds that, despite clear improvements
over recent years, prime time TV drama struggles to present an
accurate picture of mental illness.

Making Drama out of a Crisis aims to encourage writers, producers,
directors and commissioners of television drama to enter into a debate
about these issues and how they portray mental illness on TV. Mental
health charities, experts and people with mental health problems are
keen to join this discussion.

Making Drama out of a Crisis looks at three months of TV drama
broadcast between 4pm and 11pm on UK terrestrial channels.

Researchers found 74 episodes from 34 different programmes that
contained mental illness-related storylines.

Researchers also spoke to programme makers and members of the public -
both with and without personal experience of mental health problems -
about protrayals of mental illness in TV drama.

The report finds that:
- 45% of peak-time programmes with mental illness storylines
portrayed people with mental health problems as posing a threat to
others.
- 63% of references to mental health were pejorative, flippant or
unsympathetic.
- 45% of programmes had sympathetic portrayals, but these often
portrayed the characters as tragic victims.


You can download both the full and summary versions of the Making
Drama out of a Crisis report from here:

http://shift.org.uk/news