Two studies find an increase in mental health representations on television and are more positive

We know that television has the power to change people’s minds on political and social issues. But what if you can change your mind about mental health?

Two studies, both published Thursday, looked at representations of mental health on television. They were commissioned by MTV Entertainment Studios as part of their Mental Health Storytelling Initiative and Mental Health Media Guidewhich lists resources and advocates available to teach creators best practices for discussing mental health in their works.

The first study, conducted as part of Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative, looked at the prevalence of mental health conditions depicted in television shows and the context surrounding those depictions.

The other, carried out by the USC Norman Lear Centers Media impact project, looked at the process used to report mental health stories in entertainment media, as well as trends in the representation of mental health in scripted television and film, and the effect of mental health stories in the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of the public. The researchers monitored scripts for keywords such as ADHD or psychotherapy, as well as more pejorative terms. Comparing a sample of programming that ran between 2021 and 2022 with programming that ran between 2015 and 2019, the results showed a 39% increase in scripts mentioning these keywords and a decrease in 15% in the use of derogatory language.

Each studio evaluated more than a dozen shows working with the media guide, including those associated with MTVE’s parent company, Paramount Global (such as Paramount+’s Real World Homecoming: New Orleans and VH1’s Basketball Wives) and others that weren’t (like Peacocks). Bel-Air, Maxs Clone High and Hulus UnPrisoned) and contrasted these themes with similar shows that did not use it.

Brianna Cayo Cotter, senior vice president of social impact for Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios, says they looked at a variety of shows because they wanted to see if representation improved and what effect it had on ratings.

When you look at all the young data and statistics, BIPOC [and] LGBTQ people have the greatest mental health challenges and often don’t have the same resources to access help, she says.

Cayo Cotter says the decision to include so much reality programming and shows that skew toward younger viewers is because we want to go where we can have the most impact.

These populations are struggling more with mental health challenges, and they’re also fans of the shows, he says. It ends up being really organic and natural to do what has the most impact.

Both studies found that, just as in real life, discussion of mental health is also increasing on television. They also found that positive representations of this subject increased. The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study found that characters with mental health issues were less likely to be stigmatized and more likely to receive help.

The main result of this study is that when a series is influenced by a mental health intervention [such as by] using the media guide or working with experts, we were more likely to see help-seeking activities like therapy or treatment for mental health issues, says Katherine Pieper, program director of Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative . This was true when showing characters with mental health issues and for characters in general. The findings suggest that working with creatives and offering guidance can be part of showing a more nuanced and authentic picture of mental health.

Similarly, the Lear Center study found that audiences who watched these programs were more likely to be knowledgeable about mental health and interested in receiving treatment.

Some of this may not seem too surprising; the study found that viewers of Couples Therapy, the much-lauded Showtime docuseries that takes viewers inside psychoanalyst Orna Guralniks’ sessions with her patients, saw the biggest change in personal mental health stigma in all the programs he studied and compared to an equivalent sample. of non-viewers, they were significantly more likely to talk about mental health and seek information about it.

But Lear’s researchers also looked at parasocial relationships, where viewers feel they have friendships with media characters. Erica Lynn Rosenthal, director of research at the Lear Center, pointed to Kerry Washingtons Paige in the Hulu comedy UnPrisoned as an example. Paige is a family and marriage therapist who is working through her own complicated upbringing.

Black viewers, in particular, were more likely to experience these feelings of friendship with Paige, Rosenthal says. And the stronger these feelings of friendship are, the greater will be their knowledge [of mental health]the lower the stigma, the greater their willingness to seek therapy.

The strong kinship audiences have with relatable characters and people’s willingness to improve their mental health is no surprise to Guralnik.

Society is in trouble [and] seeking therapy is a symptom of the problem, he says. People are distressed, people are suffering, people are distressed. They don’t understand how to think about the future. And they cannot trust the social structure and leaders.

The fact that it’s a subject so often associated with young adults made it an even more pertinent subject for Bel-Air, Morgan Coopers dramatic modernization of Will Smith’s comedy The Prince of Bel-Air.

In this story, Carlton’s character played in Alfonso Ribeiro’s Fresh Prince as a lover of Tom Jones and a very positive preparation, is portrayed by Olly Sholotan as a determined, excellence-at-any-cost, Xanax-snorting power player . Carlton has anxiety and panic attacks that he tries to hide for fear of showing weakness. But in the fourth episode of the second season, Dont Kill My Vibe, Carlton comes to terms with his mental health, accidentally starting an open dialogue among his classmates about his mental health.

Cooper says what happens to Carlton, who comes from a place of privilege, is a reminder that money can’t solve everything. Cooper says it’s important that he can keep his problems almost undetected until his cousin Will (Jabari Banks) moves into his house.

He says that sometimes you need someone new to come into your life to offer a different perspective and say, Hey, you know, this isn’t okay.

Chris McCarthy, Office of the CEO and President and CEO of Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios and who, along with Annenberg founder Stacy L. Smith, spearheaded the 2021 launch of the Storytelling Coalition, tells The Times that the research is clear and incredibly positive. evidence that media guidance can help reduce stigma and, above all, encourage behavior change.

With the growing mental health crisis, all creators in the industry have an important role to play in developing responsible portrayals and characters that spark conversations about mental health and reduce the devastating impact of stigma, she says.

The question now is what happens next. The guide, as well as the studies and resources, are open to everyone, content creators or not. Now that we know it works, how can we scale it up? says Cayo Cotter.

He adds that they have delved into creating guides for children’s programming and also for digital creators. She wants to take a chapter from the LGBTQ+ media monitoring organization GLAAD and its media guides like the Study responsibility indexwhich analyzes the representations of queer characters in cinema.

I am very confident that, especially with this research, we know how to change the representation of mental health and we know that it has a positive impact on public behaviour, she says. So, God, figure out everything we can do to put it everywhere.