Today (Thursday 6 February) is the very first Time to Talk Day which aims to get people talking about mental health. It’s a focal point of the Time to Change campaign which is England's biggest programme to challenge mental health stigma and discrimination.
This week also saw Australia’s most decorated Olympian, Ian Thorpe, admitted to rehab. His ongoing battle with depression and alcohol, first revealed in his autobiography, had largely been hidden from those closest to him, even at the height of his swimming career. After being found disorientated outside his parents’ home, I was pleased to see the media report the story with empathy.
Rewind two months though and this was a far cry from the way in which English cricketer Jonathan Trott was treated by the same journalists, after he flew home from the Ashes tour with a stress related illness.
Now, some may say that given the historically fierce sporting rivalry between the Poms and Aussies, this was fair game, but I see it differently. One in four people will be affected by a mental health problem in their lifetime and while I’m all for a bit of banter, in my view Trott’s treatment over-stepped the mark.
Negative media representations of mental health conditions help fuel stigma, in this case one which is pretty deeply engrained. What I think is most worrying is the fact that the coverage around Ian Thorpe showed the Australian media are capable of handling mental health issues sensitively but in the case of Trott, deliberately chose to use it as a stick to beat him (and the rest of the England cricket team) with.
In the last year, media representations of mental health have come under fire; most notably the Hyundai ad which appeared to show someone trying to take their own life purely to illustrate the environmental credentials of a car, or The Sun for using the headline ‘1,200 killed by mental health patients.’
While the work of mental health charities including Rethink Mental Illness and Mind, who both spearhead the Time to Change campaign, has gone some way to helping remove some of the stigma surrounding mental health, there is still a huge amount of work to be done. It’s here I think the media has a huge role to play. Whether that’s steering clear of stereotypes, reporting on the issue sensitively or even just putting it on the news agenda in the first place.
Just because someone is an elite athlete, has reached the very pinnacle of their sport and seemingly has it all, does not mean they are any less likely to experience a mental health problem. It doesn’t discriminate and neither should the media channels, who are so keen to laud their achievements when things are going well.
Bethan Simkins
Account Director
