Mental Health in Modern Psychology - Report Example

Thematic Analysis Report al Affiliation) The mechanisms in which media uses the mental health in describing the violent occurrences only cause the stigmas and discrimination around people with mental illness. The community is normally influenced by the psychiatric language and the mass media in new literature having negative effects on the entire attitudes based on the individual having mental illness; the article intends to see at how the mass media influenced the mental health in depicting the violent events, with the implication of the negative attitudes that are perpetuated. The study is based on the thematic analysis of the article based on the murder of Raoul Moat. It was evident that the mental illness depiction is majorly and vastly used in describing the behavior that do not conform into the acceptable behavior of the society. Introduction Media has portrayed mental health as a crucial concern in the modern psychology. Normally criminal behavior and violent a=ones are associated with mental problems in news around the world. Normally, the nexus are simple discrimination and stigmatization of a given group that the society tends to discriminate against; people having psychiatric disorders. This paper looked at mechanism that the mass media employs the psychiatric psychology in depicting and explaining the violent events. The terminologies normally differentiated from many professional words like the mad, psycho to words that are disrespectful such as the deranged, nuts, and twisted. As unpredictable or unstable are aims normally used to describe people having psychiatric behaviors, they mean diminished responsibility which is regarded by the authors to explain the socially unacceptable behaviors. The reason why the trend is worrying is tabloids appealing to psychiatric languages helping to perpetuate the society’s negative behaviors towards people having mental illness. The expectation of the society to the people having psychiatric disorders is the idea of exhibiting the untrustworthy, erratic, unreliable, unsociable, dangerous, unpredictable, transient, unemployed, observed by authors as themes that reoccur in the newspapers. Lauber conducted a research analyzing the capacity of people to recognize the mental problems. The hypothesis behind the study was a positive correlation between the ability of the people in recognizing the mental illness and the positive notion towards the affected individuals. However, the outcome was a negative correlation implying that people are good in recognizing the mental illness; they are in a position to support the ideas of segregating the people from the society. Taking into consideration the individual negative perception with the mental problems will continue to persist, despite the information availability on the media’s information on mental health. The important issue that was raised is the impact of mental health on the children. The issue was raised that the attitude are built in childhood, as the word crazy will be comprehended from the elementary school. A very important issue raised in the study is the depicting of the mass media where the mental problem is what changes the good people villains. From the study conducted by Paik, ninety eight per cent of the American households have television sets and seventy per cent has computers, the number have increase substantially since 2001, meaning that the mass media exposure is fast. Additionally, stigmatization and discrimination only come up with the negative attitude towards the people, therefore, using psychiatric terminology is not right. Gunn and Taylor recognized the homicides percentage by Schizophrenia people in the entire world and the figures have ranged from eight per cent to fifteen per cent. Therefore, how does mass media depict the violent events through the use of mental health concerns? Analytic Approach The report has focused on the article called “She Dumped Me for a Pig….I’m Gonna Sort Them: Prison pal on the moment psycho killer Moat Flipped”. The article under the publication of the “The People”, London, UK on July 28th 2010. The article is a recent one, thus offering very latest views of the journalists. The method for the research was thematic analysis, as the themes were generated from the text of the article. Some of the themes that were evident from the article include the obsession and emotional instability. The themes were generated from the article with the help of psychiatric terminology analysis and mental illness depiction. The analysis restructured the article and employed specific section to outline how the unacceptable social behaviors can be presented (Howard, 2010). Findings and Discussions The article offered various themes which can be used in showing the way the media blames the socially unacceptable behaviors and murders on the mental illness (Boyatzis, 1998). The mental health of Raoul Moat is pertinent to the experiment’s aim, as it is not an evaluation and analysis of the wrong diagnosis set the journalists ser. However, it outlines how the mental illness stigmatizes people having mental illness. There is not terminology regarded as professional related to the mental concepts. The most crucial theme identified from the start of the story is emotional instability. Instability is regarded as the main reason leading Moat to his previous reaction then leading to murder. The first sentence in the body of the article is the word deranged. The word is in block capitals, emphasizing the presumed condition for Moat. The disrespectful word is applied before Moat started crying as soon as he realized that he was left by the girlfriend. The expectation of the society of an individual that is deranged are of violence, instability, and aggression. The psycho killer image is changed by the portrayal of Moat as weeping monster emphasizing the instability aspect (Rathband, 2011). The idea presented to the people, of a big bodied brute crying is worrying, as the believe of a male crying is regarded as a taboo in today’s society. Here the article emphasize with Moat, however is insists to alienate the society’s mental illness; positive depiction can result to segregation. The instability theme is put under emphasis by the idea that before receiving the phone call on break-up, Moat was characterized as calm and funny person who took care of the family and the girlfriend. The sudden change in the character after receiving the call is designed to build the expectation of the society the way a person having mental illness will act in that situation. His confidant in the prison said he cried his eyes out. Additionally, the friend compare the scene with an instance of staring the eyes of a mad bull. This was a mixed reaction that is not seen in people, the main reason why the society classifies the issues of mental health (Boyatzis, 1998). Another theme that was evident in the article is obsession, also pointed out as one of the society’s expectation from people suffering from the mental illness. Moat is presented having various obsessions. Ryan, reported the obsession of Moat on the policemen hatred. The reason behind the hatred is taken by the society to be irrational, it is very rare to find a mad individual having a hatred for the policemen. Another way in which Moat is portrayed as obsessed is the way he desperately wanted to find out the name of his ex-girlfriend’s new partner. This connects with his hatred for policemen, as one of his main concerns was that he was left for a policeman(Rathband, 2011). The fact that the article gives no more information about this makes the audience think that Moat got the idea that the man was a policeman only because of the obsession. He is also described as having an obsession for self-appearance, as he went to the gym very often, and he spent his money on protein shakes. It is also mentioned that he was very strong, increasing his image of a dangerous person, matching society’s view of a person with mental illness (Howard, 2010).The obsession theme is stressed in the article, as it strikes society very easily. The article associates these ‘obsessions’ which can be often found in ‘mentally healthy’ people with pathology, and turns it into unacceptable behavior. Conclusion The conclusion drawn from the article is the notion that mass media exploits the expectation of the society of persons having mental illness through the use of psychiatric language when the violent events are depicted. The case in the article was a good illustration of stigmatization. The community is normally influenced by the psychiatric language and the mass media in new literature having negative effects on the entire attitudes based on the individual having mental illness; the article intends to see at how the mass media influenced the mental health in depicting the violent events, with the implication of the negative attitudes that are perpetuated. The study is based on the thematic analysis of the article based on the murder of Raoul Moat. It was evident that the mental illness depiction is majorly and vastly used in describing the behavior that do not conform into the acceptable behavior of the society(Guest & MacQueen, 2012). Reference Boyatzis, R. E. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: thematic analysis and code development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Guest, G., & MacQueen, K. M. (2012). Applied thematic analysis. Los Angeles: Sage Publications. Howard, V. (2010). Raoul Moat his short life and bloody death. London: John Blake. Rathband, D. (2011). Tango 190: Raoul Moat, the Gateshead shootings & life without my eyes. London: Biteback. Read More