Tip-sheet - Mental Health

Tip Sheet

Why It Matters

Entertainment media has the power to shift culture around mental health, influencing audience perceptions and the way we speak up, seek help, and support others.

Step by Step Process

Identify Mental
Health Themes

Identify the themes within your project, browse the relevant sections of this guide, and establish your intent. Whether your project has mental health at the heart of its.

Connect
with Experts

Engage an advisor with mental health expertise to help you maximize positive impact and mitigate potential harm, including developing a plan to support cast and crew.

Consider Potential
Pitfalls

Anticipate potential themes or scenarios in your story that could contribute to emotional struggles among viewers, influence harmful behaviors, reinforce negative.

Expand Your Vision, Increase Your Impact

Brainstorm ways to maximize impact within your story, whether it’s through more diverse representation, incorporating conversations about mental health and help-seeking, depicting effective and realistic treatment options, or countering negative stereotypes.

Support Your Audience Before, During & After Viewing

Make a plan to support viewers by incorporating resources into your content, which can help audience members turn an emotional response into help-seeking and other positive actions. Also, consider how your marketing materials, social media content, and other aspects of your project can impact viewers.

Storytelling Tips

1. Portray a Range
of MentalHealth
Experiences

Look for opportunities to expand depictions of mental health and treatment to reflect the full continuum of experiences.

2. Diversify
Representation

Represent diverse characters and communities in your mental health storylines to help viewers from all backgrounds feel seen, recognize...

3. Show Conversations
About Mental Health
and Help-Seeking

Show conversations about mental health happening in relatable ways to make viewers more comfortable with speaking up and asking for help.

4. Spotlight Support
from Friends and
Family Members

Elevate stories of friends and family members who are supportive and show how to effectively support someone who’s struggling.

5. Depict Effective,
Realistic Help-Seeking
and Treatment

Show positive and productive therapeutic experiences to help diminish some of the fear and misconceptions surrounding treatment.

6. Highlight the Power
of Coping Skills and
Self-Care

Highlight how self-care and coping practices can positively impact our mental health, and avoid implying that self-care is an indulgence or luxury.

7. Represent the Complex
Causes of Mental
Health Challenges

Portray the complex factors that contribute to mental health challenges to better equip viewers to support themselves and others.

8. Consider the Impact
of Language

Try to avoid: incorrect usage of medical terminology (like schizo, bipolar); defining people by their condition (say person experiencing depression instead of depressed person); and talking about suicide in a stigmatizing way (use died by suicide instead of committed suicide).

9. Move Past
Stereotypes

Be mindful of stereotypes when depicting mental health challenges or themes and aim for authenticity over tropes.

10. Be Cautious About
Overstating &
Reinforcing Stigma

Try not to overemphasize stigma, judgment, or mistreatment related to mental health, which can prevent viewers from speaking up and getting help.

11. Avoid Sharing
Potentially Harmful
Details

Ensure that storylines involving harmful behaviors are not unintentionally providing information that could make viewers more likely to engage in those behaviors themselves.

12. Provide Resources
& Calls-to-Action

Provide viewers with ways to take action after watching your content, to help turn an emotional reaction into a positive outcome.

Today’s Mental Health Landscape

Prevalence of mental health conditions continue to rise.

The percentage of Americans experiencing a mental health condition is rising, and nearly one-quarter of people with a mental health condition report an unmet need for treatment.

Common barriers to help-seeking.

Cost is the most common obstacle to accessing mental health care but cultural norms and perceptions also play a role. Many believe that mental health challenges aren’t serious enough to require treatment, or that asking for help is a sign of weakness. People also fear judgment, making them uncomfortable talking about mental health with family or close friends, and in some cases perceive greater stigma than actually exists.

Mental health is underrepresented in media.

Viewers are still limited in the number and diversity of stories they are likely to see, and the nature of those portrayals is not always helpful or supportive to people who are struggling.

Self-care can help, and technology is making treatment more accessible.

There’s growing acknowledgement among both clinical experts and the general public that self-care practices can be critical to emotional health and wellbeing and many are incorporating these practices into their daily lives. At the same time, new telemedicine and technology platforms allow people to access clinical care more readily and take a more proactive approach to mental health care.

There is widespread support for prioritizing mental health.

Nearly 80% of people believe that mental health is a priority and almost 90% feel that making mental health care more accessible and affordable is important.