This is a conversation that we’ve been having a lot lately, due to the shootings in Roseburg, but I want to make it clear: It is not only in the context of a mass shooting that I object to journalists describing people as “mentally ill”. In fact, part of the problem is that we only talk about it when we’re discussing something that cannot, under any circumstances, be seen as a sane and rational act. It’s hard to stand here and say that Chris Harper-Mercer should not be described as a mentally ill individual when he did something that seems like it could only have been motivated by suicidal depression combined with a narcissistic demand for attention and a sociopathic disregard for other human lives.
But I can’t say for sure that was the cause. I am not a trained mental health professional. What I did in the previous paragraph? It was an armchair layman’s diagnosis using terms I’ve picked up from reading about the field of psychiatry. Understandably, we all do that to some extent; the jargon of psychiatry has increasingly become part of the language of modern life. But I remain a layman, as do the journalists reporting on Umpqua. Diagnosing someone with a mental illness without proper training and without direct interaction with the patient is always a mistake, and reporting that armchair diagnosis as fact is criminally sloppy reporting.
But most journalists are even sloppier than that. I made a guess that the shooter was depressed because he killed himself; I made a guess that he was narcissistic because he wanted to draw massive amounts of attention to his death. I made a guess that he lacked the ability to empathize with others because he chose a method of drawing attention to his death that hurt others without any apparent regard for their suffering. Again, layman’s guesses, not a diagnosis. But most journalists probably made similar guesses, and what was reported? That the shooter was “mentally ill”.
“Mental illness” is as vague a term as “physical illness”, but the latter is never used in modern journalism. No reporter would ever describe someone in a news story as “physically ill”–they would clearly report that the cause of the symptoms was unknown, and promise clear and specific updates as more information was available. They would then update with the opinion of a medical professional who had studied the specific symptoms and treated the patient (and was able to speak on the record regarding the issue), and from that point on they would refer to the person as “suffering from” the specific condition. Chris Harper-Mercer? He’s “mentally ill”, and that’s all there is to it.
That kind of reporting lumps a sociopathic mass murderer in with a compulsive hand-washer, or an agoraphobic. It contributes directly to the social stigma that people who have a variety of mental health conditions have to deal with on top of their health issues–bad enough that they may have clinical depression, now if they talk about their health it sounds like they’re one bad day away from shooting up a college campus. Mental illness is every bit as common as physical illness, and sometimes just as treatable, but we’ve turned it into something to fear rather than something to treat. It has to stop.
Journalists aren’t the only ones to blame, of course. Part of our problem may be that we only discuss our mental health when something’s wrong with us. (If we get a yearly physical check-up with a physician, why not a yearly mental check-up with a psychiatrist?) But as long as journalists persist in the lazy habit of making armchair diagnoses without consulting with professionals–professionals with knowledge of the specific case history involved–and as long as they continue to treat “mental illness” as a blanket term that can be applied to all diseases equally, the problem can never be fixed. I know I’m not saying anything new, here. Many people reading this will probably be rolling their eyes that it took this long for me to write something this obvious. But I have to say it, because every voice helps.
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This is unfair. First, physical illness is a lot easier to diagnose. What’s more, if it’s relevant to a story, it will be obvious(missing a leg, etc) or able to be established after the fact (the autopsy revealed the man died of a heart attack). Because mental illness affects how you behave in often non-obvious ways, the journalist isn’t going to be able to make a more intelligent guess than ‘mentally ill’, and while an expert might be able to narrow it down, I doubt even a licensed psychologist would be willing to say “yes that’s obviously schizophrenia” or whatever. For example, is this a depressed sociopath who decided to go out in a big way? Is it psychopathic delusions? Is it some form of schizophrenia? Do any of those guesses even make sense to begin with? It’s not like we can just cut into his brain and find out during the autopsy(Hell, maybe it’s a tumor pressing on his brain – that’s been known to have strong effects on behavior and the possibility makes even the ‘mental illness’ label dicey)
I agree that we don’t deal well with mental illness, but I disagree that we can really blame journalists for this.
I agree with all your points, Dasz, but I disagree with your conclusion. It is hard to say if a person is suffering from mental illness and even harder to determine which one unless you are involved in treating a particular person – but that’s not an argument for lazy journalism that hurts many people, it’s an argument for journalists not reporting conjecture as fact and waiting for hard evidence.
This sums up my issues with the topic in more perfect detail than I have previously found. Thank you. Not that I deal with many people who would disagree with this essay, but I will hold onto this for the few times I might need it.
BringTheNoise: The problem is that there likely won’t ever *be* hard evidence, much less anything like a real diagnosis and not reporting something like this as the product of mental illness is as much a judgement call as reporting that it is.
I understand the desire for evidence, but mental illness isn’t nearly as cut and dried as physical illness, so what evidence there is won’t lead to anything nearly as conclusive.
@Dasz: I’m pretty sure there are a lot of situations where journalists don’t know all the facts. I’m pretty sure they’d all agree that printing unlabeled, uninformed speculation in its place is a violation of their ethics. I’m only suggesting we treat mental illness the same way we do other speculation.
And my point is that we literally *can’t* because mental illness isn’t the same as other speculation. If the person in question dies, then in all likelihood all conclusive evidence goes with them.
@Dasz: Then why report it at all? Tempting and superficially comforting as it would be, not every atrocity can be attributed to a mental illness. A lot of horrible things have been done for perfectly rational reasons.
If we don’t know, then say so. Don’t attribute a motive you can’t explain or support with evidence. It screws up any real efforts to investigate and prevent other acts of violence to just throw up your hands and write it off to crazy whenever you can’t instantly pin down a motive.
I’m not convinced this behavior can be laid at the feet of mental illness. Are soldiers mentally ill? Are Daesh militants? Is anyone who dies for a cause?
Young men often are willing to kill and die for something they believe in. Young men often believe silly things. So a young man who kills and dies for silly reasons is possibly within the bounds of normal psychological development for his age, and therefore presumably “sane” by definition–unless a large proportion of young men in general are “insane.”
But those silly beliefs are delusions, right?
So what? If delusions are “mental illness,” then all mistaken beliefs are, and we are all somewhat mentally ill. Such a definition would categorize anyone who disagrees with the speaker on anything of consequence as “sick in the head.”
No. I don’t know that he was “mentally ill,” in any way that separates him from the general run of mankind, who presumably pass for normal and sane.
Foolishness, anger, foul moods, these are often normal and transitory states of mind. And men may do horrible things because of them.
@Bael: I’m not arguing that they shouldn’t do *any* investigation, I’m arguing that criticizing journalists for not being more specific than “mental illness” is unfair because a lot of the time if “mental illness” is the case that’s going to be as specific as it is possible to get.
I think his point, Dasz, is that if there is no actual proof of mental illness, the journalists assuming that the suspect is mentally ill at all is the problem–not a lack of specificity in what kind of mental illness they’re assuming.
@Dasz: If they can’t be more specific, then they should not be using the term at all. In every other case where something is unknown or cannot be determined, it is expected of journalists that they avoid speculation–and if they must speculate, then they are under an obligation to label it as such.
Yes, you are right in that frequently, it is not known and cannot be known whether a person is mentally ill. But you are proceeding from there to a false conclusion–that journalists should simply get a mulligan on their sloppy and inaccurate reporting that is materially harmful to millions of Americans, because hey, who wouldn’t speculate about things in a situation like that? Not buying it.
News reporters will offer conjecture on killers even when they know next to nothing about the person. For instance, a serial killer could have regularly met with close social acquaintances, and newscasters will still suggest that the killer was a “loner”, and therefore people should have seen the killing spree coming a mile away. Which itself is a form of logic that I can’t wrap my head around.
I’m not arguing that they get a free pass every time they use the term, I’m arguing that if there’s evidence of mental illness, it’s not unreasonable of them to report that and that requiring that they don’t mention it unless they have a real diagnosis is unreasonable.
Also, just to be clear: I don’t know or care about the details of this case specifically and am only engaging in the broader argument. Whether or not they should have used the term this time is a different argument.
@Dasz: We’re not that far apart, I think. If there IS evidence of mental illness, then it is fair to report on that. My objection is to the apparently default assumption that any given spree killer MUST be mentally ill.
On the other hand, I believe that if the mental illness doesn’t usually induce violence, it might be more helpful to NOT discuss it at length.
@Bael: Yeah, I agree.
I find it difficult to find the right words for this, but I’m learning and I’m grateful for posts like this that force the conversation to start.
I highly recommend Iva Cheung’s writing on sanism: http://www.ivacheung.com/2015/05/sanism-and-the-language-of-mental-illness/