I recently published blogs criticizing Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Brian Williams for either saying or presenting programs that marginalized and belittled persons with mental illnesses. Those blogs drew a record number of readers to this website — more than 17,000.  Obviously, fighting stigma is something, about which, many of us care.

Should we? Or are we wasting our time?

Before I chastised Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Brian Williams, the president and CEO of the National Council For Behavioral Health, Linda Rosenberg, wrote a column entitled: Is Mental Health Stigma Overrated? I’m a big fan of Linda’s, so much so, that I helped recruit her when the Corporation for Supportive Housing was searching for a new board member. Linda is a dynamic and innovative leader who works tirelessly to improve our mental health care system.

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Dear Pete,

 

I am a psychiatric APRN (advanced practice nurse) at [a well known hospital] and have worked in emergency departments as a staff nurse. Your descriptions in your book, CRAZY, about the jail block in Miami Dade County where psychotic prisoners were incarcerated rang disturbingly familiar as to how a hospital emergency department operates with its psychiatric patients. The inpatient unit is actually less restrictive than the emergency department. In both places though the staff is burnt out, and many have been victims of or witness to their co-workers being victims of physical assaults by psychiatric patients.

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Parents of Children with Mental Illness

See Things Through a Different Lens

A guest blog by Joseph Meyer

     A few weeks ago, President Obama spoke about the lens of personal experiences through which African Americans see life in the United States and how it impacts their perceptions.  Several months earlier, in response to the Newtown tragedy, the President called for a national conversation about mental illness.  Today, I am writing about the lens that colors my perceptions as the father of a child with severe mental illness in the United States.

When mental illness strikes young children, parents are often confused about what is happening—we question our own parenting skills, wonder if there is something we did wrong, and spend a lot of time and money searching for answers.  We also hear a great deal of criticism and unsolicited advice from strangers, friends, and family: “You’re too permissive; I’d never let my child get away with that behavior” or “My pastor says kids with those types of issues have parents who are devil worshippers.” I believe such thoughts are in the minds of some strangers when they see my son come unglued in public, because I had critical thoughts about misbehaving children and their parents before becoming the father of a child with bipolar disorder.

On the outside, children with mental illness look no different than other youth and their symptoms may appear to be disciplinary issues. Educators even refer to their symptoms as behavioral or emotional disorders, implying that bad parenting is an underlying cause.  Despite a poor scientific understanding of what causes mental illnesses, they are often unjustifiably blamed on parents.

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The National Alliance on Mental Illness issued a statement Friday night chastising both Dr. Phil and NBC’s Brian Williams for inappropriate  remarks they have  made which stigmatized persons with mental illnesses.

NAMI’s statement [printed below] further legitimizes complaints that I raised in an Op Ed about Dr. Phil published Wednesday in USA Today’s online edition and blogs published by others criticizing Dr. Phil and Williams. Major news sources often don’t pay much attention to individual blogs, but do react when NAMI, the largest grassroots mental health organization with more than 300,000 members, issues a statement.

I hope NAMI’s statement will bring additional pressure on NBC’s Williams and Dr. Phil to publicly apologize, although I am skeptical either will. 

Meanwhile, you can add a third offender to the list of television personalities who should know better but apparently believe it is funny to make light about persons with mental illnesses.

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I’ve been warned that fighting stigma is a bit like tilting at windmills, but I find it difficult to keep silent when I see blatant examples. Dr. Phil’s comments about how “insane” individuals “suck on rocks and bark at the moon” were especially offensive since he is a psychologist. Last night, I flipped on the news and heard NBC Anchor Brian Williams make remarks that were just as stigmatizing.

Williams announced that Ariel Castro, the Cleveland kidnapper/rapist who held three women captive for a decade, was “arguably the face of mental illness.” 

Not content to toss millions of Americans who have mental health issues under the bus, Williams spoke with contempt about how Castro had given a rambling, difficult to hear speech, during which he justified his actions by  “appropriating the language of the addiction and treatment culture” and declaring himself “sick.”

What exactly is the “language of the addiction and treatment culture” Mr. Williams?

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