What Hollywood Gets Wrong About Mental Illness | Dr. Eric Bender
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What is discussed at the start of this section?
Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. The overarching theme of the Joker is that he is really a psychopath. So a psychopath is someone who's callous and uncaring. They will use people as pawns to get what they want in their lives. They really don't care.
I feel like listeners or viewers might hear your definition of that and be like, oh, I dated one of those. Yeah.
Is that... I've been asked this before. When it comes to dating, psychopathy... is probably an extreme version of narcissism. One of the traits for narcissistic personality disorder is you lack empathy. I think they're talking about people who are totally absorbed with themselves, not considering other people, think they deserve the best treatment. They should be the center of attention. They're pursuing unlimited power, beauty, money, whatever. Those are narcissistic traits. And maybe you are seeing them in people you date. Are you displaying them also or what's happening?
Welcome back to the Checkup Podcast. Today, we're diving into the world of Dr. Eric Bender, a psychiatrist whose insights on the human mind have been featured everywhere from the New York Times to viral videos with GQ. He's not just a doctor, he's a storyteller who makes the science of mental health actually click. You may have enjoyed his work on Batman Arkham Shadow, where he served as a consultant to ensure the science was spot on. In this episode, we're diving into the surprising ways Hollywood gets mental health terribly wrong, where it nails it perfectly, and even into the social media trend of diagnosing your ex with a personality disorder. Trust me, you'll walk away from this one seeing media and even your own mind in a different way.
Let's get started. You've become quite vocal about how mental health is portrayed in media. If you had to say positive, negative, neutral impact on your work day-to-day working with patients, how has media impacted them?
Media impacts them tremendously. YouTube just took over as the most watched from other streaming services. Yeah, let's go. So people watch media and whether that is YouTube or whether they're watching Netflix or whatever other streaming services, people get ideas from media. If you look back, I'll just remember some of the stuff from when I was a kid, the karate kid, 84, karate had a huge explosion in popularity and you go back farther, 75, Jaws, sharks were suddenly hunted a lot more. Media gives people ideas. So to get ideas about mental health, let's make sure they're Good ideas or real ideas?
That's true. So how, if you're doing a report card, do you think it's been trending on the good side or a bit more problematic?
I think it's going in a very good direction. When I first started doing work with media and mental health, it was back in 2008, 2009. And at that time, I had teachers telling me, why are you doing this? This is a waste of time. I was asked by ABC News, can you talk about Darth Vader? What personality disorder Darth Vader might have? So I was talking about borderline traits and histrionic traits with some colleagues. And one of my teachers I really liked, he's like, does... Darth Vader, borderline personality. What is so stupid? But it's not. It's an entrance to talking about mental health, which even though we're going in good direction, it's still very scary for people to talk about. So if we can talk about characters, movies, and TV shows they like, then they can start asking and learning more.
I always worry when talking about mental health subjects or covering them, there's a way to talk about them responsibly where you are pointing out that this is not the normal way that you would go about diagnosing things, but you're doing this as a form of entertainment in order to educate. Sometimes people blur the lines of that. Have you seen that happening a bit? I have.
I think if I'm looking at, But just to be clear, do you mean people looking at a TV show and saying, this is how it's done and this is how I expect psychiatrists to be?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is discussed at the start of this section?
0:00–7:01
2
How does media impact perceptions of mental health?
7:01–13:41
3
What are the ethical considerations in discussing mental health in media?
13:41–19:15
4
How do fictional characters portray mental health issues?
19:15–1:03:49
5
How does online therapy compare to traditional therapy?
1:03:49–1:04:12
6
What are the potential issues with AI in mental health care?
1:04:12–1:04:57
7
What is the role of psychiatrists in managing their own mental health?
1:04:57–1:05:42
8
How can couples therapy impact relationships?
1:05:42–2:03:23
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Checkup with Doctor Mike
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