Mental Health Issues and the Media: An Introduction for Health Professionals

Our ideas about mental health and illness can be informed by personal experiences but are most often formed by the prevailing attitudes of society. A wide range of contemporary media help create these attitudes and for all health professionals the ways in which they do so are of immediate concern. Health professionals need to: be aware of media influences on their own perceptions and attitudes; take account of both the negative and positive aspects of media intervention in mental health promotion and public education; understand the way in which we all interact with media messages and how this affects both practitioners and service users.