How the stereotypes associated with Schizophrenia are contributing to the mental illness.
By Anne Kuckertz
Stacy Kenney was unarmed and in the middle of a mental health crisis when she was shot and killed by Springfield Ohio police. The 33-year-old had schizophrenia and was in her car when she was approached by police after she exhibited behavior they found “weird.” She did not display any signs of aggression, but the officers used force almost immediately anyway.
Kenney’s story is, sadly, just one of many. A study done by the Treatment Advocacy Center found that people with mental illness are 16 percent more likely to be shot by police. And it’s these encounters, the violent ones, that we hear about most in the news. And as a result, in the eyes of the public most of the people with schizophrenia are aggressive.
According to a study conducted at St. Mary’s University, 83% if the main characters in movies with schizophrenia made between 1990 and 2010 were depicted as violent. This didn’t even take into account the whole host of violent characters with schizophrenia on tv. Episodes of shows like Criminal Minds and CSI feature aggressive murderers with schizophrenia.
It’s been over a decade and negative stereotypes surrounding schizophrenia still exist. An analysis of an anonymous social networking site in China found that 26.22% of posts related to schizophrenia had a stigmatizing nature. And of these posts, 26.86% were related to violence saying things along the lines of how one should be careful around people with schizophrenia because they are dangerous. The tragic thing is that, as was the case with Kenney, those who have schizophrenia are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than the perpetrators. Also, only 7-10% of men and 2-7% of women with schizophrenia are convicted for violent crimes, which isn’t much different from the 4 percent we see in the overall population. And those with schizophrenia who display aggressive behavior often have other contributing factors such as substance abuse disorder.
But violence isn’t the only harmful stereotype associated with schizophrenia, the same study of the anonymous Chinese social networking platform found that users also associated schizophrenia with weirdness and unintelligence. Posts included things like “the schizophrenia patients, the idiot people” or “people with schizophrenia can suddenly turn crying into laughing (still with snot and tears of sadness).” The article also made note that similar studies performed using Twitter found that only 5%-7% of tweets were stigmatizing. But the authors speculated that that was probably due to the less anonymous nature of Twitter.
Such disparaging posts are not helpful, schizophrenia is already a very serious mental illness. It’s characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking or speech. It can affect memory and movement and typically shows up when a person is in their late teens. It is an extremely complex disease that can be affected by genetics, environment, and brain structure in somewhat unpredictable ways. Because of its complicated nature, scientists are still unclear on exactly what causes it. But research has shown that stigma surrounding schizophrenia may itself be an environmental factor, meaning that stereotypes surrounding schizophrenia may be causing schizophrenia.
According to a study published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin, a journal run by the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine, around 1 in 3 people with schizophrenia also have social anxiety and this anxiety could be impacted by schizophrenia related stigma. This is problematic considering that anxiety is associated with more hallucinations, depression, and withdrawal in people with schizophrenia. The study also found that people with schizophrenia who experience prejudice or discrimination related to their mental illness are more likely to misuse alcohol and/or drugs. This is especially prevalent given that substance abuse is a strong contributing factor to the small rate of violence seen in people with schizophrenia.
Given the way schizophrenia is currently represented in the media, it may be surprising to learn that those with the illness were not always viewed as violent. Before the 1960s, the diagnosis was mainly given to either petty white criminals or to women who did not conform to the patriarchal ideals of the time. However, during the civil rights era, schizophrenia became a tool of racial oppression. Doctors started diagnosing black men involved in black power or civil rights activism with schizophrenia, saying that delusions were the reason these men were involved in protests. The doctors categorized black activists as hostile. And so, the stereotype that schizophrenia equals violence was born.
Knowing the history of the schizophrenia may make combatting such a deeply embedded stereotype seem daunting, but one positive outlook on this stigma crisis is that we have the ability to fix it. We cannot influence many of the risk factors associated with schizophrenia, but we do control this aspect. We can change the way we talk about schizophrenia. We can even use the thing that has greatly contributed to schizophrenia stigma, mass media. Campaigns using social media are effective at reducing self-destructive behaviors in people with mental illness. Clearly, altering the way we discuss schizophrenia to be less negative will lead to lower rates of people trying to hide their illness for fear of stigma and higher rates of seeking help.
Wisconsin native Kody Green is taking advantage of the social media platform, TikTok to advocate for those with schizophrenia. Green, who has schizophrenia himself, uses his short videos to share his experiences with his over one million followers. He has even posted footage of himself having a hallucination (both in private and in public) in order to raise awareness and destigmatize the illness. Green has spoken about the damaging stereotype that people with schizophrenia are violent saying, “that is such a small percentage of people with schizophrenia, because one in 100 people have schizophrenia, and if you see one of those stories every three to five years and that’s all you ever see about schizophrenia, it can paint a really dangerous image.”
With people like Green leading the charge, we can make significant steps towards reducing the damaging ways we portray and think about schizophrenia. We will ensure that people with schizophrenia are treated with the respect and compassion they deserve. And in this way, we can prevent innocent people from dying due to a wrongfully perceived nature of violence.
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