The Misrepresentation of Mental Illnesses

The Misrepresentation of Mental Illnesses

Mental illness is often negatively or misrepresented by the media to

our naive society. Due to the lack of knowledge about mental

illnesses audiences tend to believe that what they see on the

television or the movies is the truth when in fact it is not. Worse

then the stigma attached to the people with mental illness is the

stigma attached to the psychologists and psychiatrists who try and

help these people better understand what ails them. Many are

portrayed as crazy or suffering from a form of mental illness

themselves. In reality though these doctors are just doing their

jobs, which is to help these people out, not to suffer the backlash

that comes with the job and stigma attached to it.

Synopsis and Summary

Hide and Seek is a cinematic picture that tells of Dr. David Callaway,

a psychiatrist played by Robert DeNiro, and his young daughter Emily

Callaway, portrayed by Dakota Fanning. Dr. Callaway wakes in the

middle of the night to find that his wife has committed suicide in

their bathtub. Emily also sees this gruesome sight and is sent to see

Katherine, played by Famke Janssen, who is a psychologist and one of

Dr. Callaway’s old students. Dr. Callaway sees that a change in

environment is needed and moves him and his daughter to a little town

in upper New York called Woodland. While in Woodland Emily “creates a

make-believe play buddy” who seems to get her into a lot of trouble.

“Charlie”, as she tells her father is his name, likes to recreate the

bathtub scene of her mother’s death and write on the walls “it’s your

fault that she died.” Emily continuously tries to tell h...

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happens. This illness is usually sparked by a traumatic event which

was never shown in the movie. “Charlie” was the one who killed

Allison, so the mystery is sparked as to where “Charlie” first

originated from.

Works Cited

Fink, Paul Jay and Tasman, Allan. (1992). Stigma and Mental Illness.

American Psychiatric Press, Inc.: Washington.

NAMI. (2003). Dissociative Identity Disorder (Formerly Multiple

Personality Disorder). Retrieved April 6, 2005, from

http://www.nami.org/content/contentgroups/helpline1/dissociative_identity_disorder_(formerly_multiple_personality_disorder).htm.

Wahl, Otto F. (1995). Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness.

Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, New Jersey.

(2005). Hide and Seek. Retrieved April 10, 2005, from

http://www.hideandseekthemovie.com/home.html.