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Media outlets of all kinds often portrays people with mental disorders as ridiculous or fearful. The same sometimes goes for mental health workers, including psychiatrists, psychologists, or psychosocial supports workers, in terms of dealing with them in a comic or ridiculous manner.

Scientific studies indicate that watching such content aired by various media platforms not only reinforces misinformation and misconceptions about people with psychological disorders, but also links mental disorders with criminality, which negatively affects the way the public perceives psychological disorders and people with psychological disorders.

According to numerous studies conducted on both experimental and control groups, the group suffering from psychological disorders had a lower rate of crime compared to the group without psychological disorders, which refutes the idea that the criminal is necessarily mentally ill, in addition to a follow-up study in the United States for a group of 1,000 inmates of psychological and mental disorders hospitals, during which they were followed after leaving hospitals for a year, and they were compared in terms of committing crimes with their neighbors who had never visited a mental hospital in the same area of residence, where no differences were observed in the level of violence from both groups.

These negative models frequently used by the media often contribute to the reinforcement and persistence of harmful behaviors of the public towards people with psychological disorders. The media also often reinforces the misconception that these people are unable to recover from the psychological disorders they suffer from and that there are no effective treatments for them.

These false beliefs also contribute to increasing the isolation of people suffering from psychological disorders, which leads to negative judgments that are not based on any scientific fact, and this is called stigma, which is an incorrect stereotype stemming from a misunderstanding and not based on realistic information.

Therefore, when the media deals with this topic, it must clarify the correct image of psychological disorders, citing reliable psychiatrists and scientific references, and take into account the issue of psychotherapy and successful recovery stories that contribute to changing these negative stereotypes of mental disorders, which will contribute to improving psychological wellness and positively affects the entire community