The Checkup with Doctor Mike
What Hollywood Gets Wrong About Mental Illness | Dr. Eric Bender
01 Oct 2025
I'll teach you how to become the media's go-to expert in your field. Enroll in The Professional's Media Academy now: https://www.professionalsmediaacademy.com/Huge thanks to @dr.ericbender for joining us today! Check out his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.ericbender00:00 Intro01:32 Diagnosing Celebrities07:39 Diagnosing Fictional Characters14:00 Boundaries With Patients18:50 Silver Linings Playbook20:47 Self Diagnosis27:54 Reaction Videos32:40 CBT vs. DBT40:50 Medication51:10 Talk Therapy52:48 “Mania”54:48 The Body Keeps The Score57:55 Who Should People Call?1:03:40 Online Therapy + AI1:08:16 Reality TV1:10:20 Psychiatrists With Issues1:13:27 Famous Psychiatrists1:18:47 Good Will Hunting1:25:47 MrBeast1:27:30 The Joker1:31:54 Snake Oil1:34:25 Labeling Your Ex1:36:36 Primary Care Problems1:40:00 Couples Therapy + Divorce1:44:35 Misconceptions1:46:40 The Bear + Adolescence + The Future1:52:36 Should You Become A Psychiatrist?Help us continue the fight against medical misinformation and change the world through charity by becoming a Doctor Mike Resident on Patreon where every month I donate 100% of the proceeds to the charity, organization, or cause of your choice! Residents get access to bonus content, an exclusive discord community, and many other perks for just $10 a month. Become a Resident today:https://www.patreon.com/doctormikeLet’s connect:IG: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/instagram/DMinstagramTwitter: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/twitter/DMTwitterFB: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/facebook/DMFacebookTikTok: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/tiktok/DMTikTokReddit: https://go.doctormikemedia.com/reddit/DMRedditContact Email: [email protected] Producer: Doctor MikeProduction Director and Editor: Dan OwensManaging Editor and Producer: Sam BowersEditor and Designer: Caroline WeigumEditor: Juan Carlos Zuniga* Select photos/videos provided by Getty Images *** The information in this video is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images, and information, contained in this video is for general information purposes only and does not replace a consultation with your own doctor/health professional **
Chapter 1: 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?
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Chapter 2: How does media impact perceptions of mental health?
So to judge and understand them as a whole person feels like you're drastically not getting the whole picture.
Correct. And that's the way I look at it too. You don't have the whole picture. I had a conversation with my wife a few months ago. She said, do you realize how much power you have as a psychiatrist when you're telling somebody how you see them and how you understand them? And I do, that's why I don't say certain things. That's why I'll help people explore what's going on in their lives.
I don't want to label people with things and especially people I don't know. That's just, it's not ethical if we bring that back in, but also it's just, who knows what's going on.
Yeah. What about from the standpoint, if you're talking about a fictional character, does the ethics then resolve and the accuracy is less important?
These individuals have not existed and they're great teaching tools. And it's a great way to start conversation about mental health. Now, when I first started, again, people weren't necessarily open to this. There were some major comic book characters that colleagues and I looked at, and some of the people behind the characters were like, why are you doing this to us?
Almost thinking we were taking away millions of dollars because we were criticizing. That's not the case at all. You can actually have more psychologically deep characters, and they're even more appealing to your audience. So people weren't always open to it. Why weren't they open to it? I think they were afraid of what would happen to our characters.
If we have to change this, if these guys, these psychiatrists, these doctors, these whatever, are telling people this about the character, what if we change them? But there's been a huge change over time. I mean, now I get calls about, hey, can you add psychological depth to our characters? We don't want to do this show, video game in the wrong way.
We don't want to do anything that's stigmatizing.
What does it mean to add psychological depth to a character?
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Chapter 3: What are the ethical considerations in discussing mental health in media?
And therapy's like that too. There's so much going on in the moments where there's not a goodwill hunting moment that I think people don't want to necessarily see that. And that takes time. So a TV show is limited to a certain amount of time. You're not going to show therapy unfold the way it would, but you can take elements of it. I think it is getting more accurate.
I think it's being depicted better.
Any particular bad examples of therapy that stick out in your
It's not that I find them as bad. It's just, I'm like, oh, I wish they'd done that a little differently. So I think I'll give you a great example of where I was really excited and I thought, oh, they could have even done a little bit more was Never Have I Ever, Mindy Kaling's show. I thought it was great. There was a bunch of adolescents.
One of them was seeing a therapist after the death of a family member and had been seeing that therapist for years. And it was really great because that doctor had an understanding of adolescent behavior and understanding how this teenager might've seen herself And the teenager went to that therapist repeatedly for help and guidance. But there were a couple of things. I think it was a comedy.
Like she would break in to the office, kind of like bust into the office when the therapist was having lunch. And there could have been a patient there. Like people just don't do that. So there I was like, oh, this is great. But, you know, and then also there was a time when the therapist hugged the patient. And you're not going to touch your patients in that way.
But again, I love that they showed an adolescent needed help.
Are hugs unethical in the psychiatric space?
It's not that it's unethical. It's individual. But I would say I've had some teaching that once you touch the patient, the relationship has changed. Now, I will touch a patient because I'm taking their blood pressure or something like that. a handshake, something like that. But a hug to me and the way I was taught is like, that's a little much. So I've had patients ask me.
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Chapter 4: How do fictional characters portray mental health issues?
suspend reality and allow everyone to understand and have buy in that they've lowered the accuracy level to a degree where perhaps becomes a bit harmful.
I think you can have a wide range of consequences to how things are depicted. And there's a wide range of how they're depicted. So I think for instance, Silver Linings Playbook is a movie people really love and the depictions of bipolar and mania I've commented on before. I think there are some great scenes. The knock on that for instance, is that love in the end will cure mental illness.
And that's not actually accurate. but you take away from it what is accurate and then you can talk about, wait a minute, does it really work that way? And hopefully you have somebody you can talk to about that, but love is not gonna cure it, but love and connection is really important to getting through life with mental health issues and even without.
So I think you look at things, if it's doing a disservice, that would be saying, for instance, let's show a treatment that's very effective and let's make it look horrific. I think that does a disservice because then people are like, I don't want to do that. That sounds horrible. So I think that can do a disservice.
But if you're starting to show mental health on screen, I think that's a first great step because for so long it was just not something people wanted to see or people were afraid to show. I think it's great that we can show it more nuanced because I do think it's more interesting for audiences and I think it's better to be accurate.
what about individuals self-diagnosing or perhaps discussing their medications, their therapy styles on social media? Because I think about one of the problems we discuss in the medical side of things is direct-to-consumer advertising with pharma. And these days I'm like, yeah, that's a problem.
But I feel like it's less of a problem now because the things that go viral are not direct to consumer ads. It's the things that give social proof. So someone making a very passionate plea of everyone should be on this medication. It saved my life and really going to bat for it perhaps can be a disservice way more effective than any direct to consumer advertisement from pharma.
So what's your stance on individuals making videos like that? Do you generally discourage it in your patients or is that not something you cover?
I think, again, anything that gets the conversation going, great. However, there's so many complexities to medications and treatments and responses. I think that people just need to realize that because this medication was great for this person doesn't mean it's going to be excellent for you.
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Chapter 5: How does online therapy compare to traditional therapy?
I think online therapy can be helpful. Maybe I'm old school, but I feel like the connection you have with a person in the room can't be beat. I think that I see the way somebody's tapping their legs and I can say, oh, are you nervous? Or it seems like you're tapping your leg. Maybe just make that observation. Or I could say, you know, I noticed when I said this earlier, you kind of winced.
Chapter 6: What are the potential issues with AI in mental health care?
And so making observations that, hey, I can't, and that can open up doors that, hey, I can't. At the same time, I have had some very anxious patients and some of them have told me, yeah, in between our sessions, I've asked AI this or I've asked AI that.
Whether that's good or bad is arguable because I think it's good that they can seek something in between, but it might perpetuate seeking reassurance, which is something you're trying to help someone anxious not do. I think in the future, what's going to happen is AI is going to be a base level of care. And then it's going to go up from that.
Maybe the most expensive care is going to be seeing a person in person.
Got it. So that's in the AI space. What I meant with the BetterHelp specific analogy or question is they have...
Chapter 7: What is the role of psychiatrists in managing their own mental health?
I don't know if they have therapists, they have some kind of online virtual person that you could meet with. And perhaps it's a different person each week. And it's like one of these platforms where you get zoomed in to a visit. Do you like that approach in general?
Sure. So the reason I answered as I did too, is I thought that that was mostly texting. There are some sites, and I could be confused with BetterHelp, there are some sites that are just texting therapy. That's where I think you missed some things. I think any connection to get people to mental health providers is good. but people often have not been in therapy before.
So I would say if you're on a Zoom session where you've been Zoomed in because of this program, do you feel comfortable with that person? What does it feel like? And if you don't feel comfortable, bring it up with the provider.
Chapter 8: How can couples therapy impact relationships?
That's the other thing I really wanna see happen. So I think it can be great, but if it doesn't feel right to the person, don't feel like you have to keep doing this therapy. So use that as a way to get to somebody else.
Yeah, I always think about this from a perspective in my world where there are companies where you can basically self-diagnose yourself and get a prescription for whatever you want. And maybe I'm exaggerating when I say whatever you want, but you could say, oh, I have male pattern baldness, so I need finasteride. I have erectile dysfunction, so I need Viagra.
And even as far as I have strep throat, so I want amoxicillin or penicillin, what have you. Yeah. So I like that these websites offer access to people who perhaps don't have access due to transportation barriers, cost, because they're usually a little cheaper than actually going to see a doctor in person. That should tell you a lot.
And the fact that perhaps they can get a prescription virtually sent over to them and it's easier to get the medication and delivered, especially if traveling is difficult for them. But at the same time, I'm like, are we hurting that alliance between doctors and patients and all the other benefits that come with a patient coming into my practice?
Because if they come in and they start asking about erectile dysfunction medications, perhaps that's an early sign of heart disease, diabetes, that we now catch a condition in its early stages where it's much more treatable or we could get the biggest impact on their life versus, oh yeah, here's some Viagra and I'm never going to check what your sugar level is.
So does that function the same in the psychological space?
I hope that people don't go online to get their psych meds. because while I agree with all those benefits of it, there can be side effects and there's also things to follow up with. So if you're on certain medications, you might want to check an EKG every now and then, or you might want to check your lipids, blood sugar, things like that. Are you following up with that?
Is someone who's prescribing this doing that? I've had a patient tell me he's gotten some meds, a GLP-1 online, and I'll say, Do you ever talk to that doctor? Nope. Do you ever get any follow-up? Nope. I'm like, okay. So I think in psychiatry, no, because medication is a piece of treatment, but there's also a time when it might be appropriate to stop it. Is anybody paying attention to that?
And again, a huge piece of psychiatry is the relationship. So who do you have a relationship with? I think you'll get better on that medication if you're actually seeing somebody at the same time.
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