A Times Film Critic Kenneth Turan: Mental Health Pictures

Patty Duke speaking about mental health issues at a 2003 event in Beverly Hills.

Patty Duke speaking about mental health issues at a 2003 event in Beverly Hills.

Long before celebrities shared their private struggles on ‘talkshow’ couches and social media feeds, actress Patty Duke broke a Hollywood taboo by speakingpublicly about her mental health struggles. Duke, who died Tuesday morningat age 69, was diagnosed with manic depression in Known at the time as The goodytwoshoeschild star Miracle Worker in Known at the time as The goodytwoshoeschild star Miracle Worker (for which she won abest supporting actressOscar at and The Patty Duke Show, Duke revealed a much darker realityin her 1987 memoir, Call Me Anna, written with Times film critic Kenneth Turan. In the book, she graphically detailed her turbulent life, drug and alcohol abuse and childhood mistreatment at cruel hands managers.

While launching acrowdfunding campaignto establish the Patty Duke Mental Health Initiative, upon her death, Duke’s son, actor Sean Astin, sought to continue his mother’s legacy of bringing attention to mental health.

Duke, who died Tuesday morningat age 69, was diagnosed with manic depression (now called bipolar.

In talking candidly about her mental illness, Duketook on thestigma long attached to the big poser. Patty Duke speaking about mental health issues at a 2003 event in Beverly Hills. While countless other public figures have talked about their depression, in the years since Duke’s disclosure. Carrie Fisher, Rene Russo and Kim Novak have spoken publicly about their own bipolar diagnoses.

Instead, said she received mostly warm, grateful feedback to Call Me Anna, and to a series of talks she gave on what she called the blackish hole.

Long before celebrities shared their private struggles on talkshow couches and social media feeds, actress Patty Duke broke a Hollywood taboo by speakingpublicly about her mental health struggles. Nonetheless, dukewould go on to work steadily,appearing on shows like Frasier, Touched by a Angel, and Judging Amy and in the film Prelude to a Kiss. However, while playing a pair of elderly twins reminiscent of her Patty Duke Show personaon the Disney Channel’s Liv and Maddie, her last credit was in 2015.

During her life, Duke lobbiedCongress to increase funding forresearch intomental illness treatments and awareness programs, and discussedher experience offinding stabilitythanks to a combination of medication and therapy in her 1997 book with medical reporter Gloria Hochman, A Brilliant Madness. Duke said she had worriedthat the disclosurewould hurt her professionally, before publicizing her diagnosis.

Long before celebrities shared their private struggles on talk show couches and social media feeds, actress Patty Duke broke a Hollywood taboo by speakingpublicly about her mental health struggles.

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Stephen Fry was launched to try to change images type used by the media for stories about mental health. Now let me ask you something. What really is wrong with the ones currently used? These stock images, often termed the headclutcher, have become a familiar sight in media portrayals of mental illness.

Charities and campaigners have, for many years, lamented such use imagery, arguing that people with mental illnesses do not always look depressed.

Charlotte Walker, who has bipolar disorder, says these pictures can be harmful, and that images of people in distress have become synonymous with mental illness.

Unless it’s about obsessive compulsive disorder, It’s a solitary image we see of mental distress, she says, in which case you always get someone washing their hands, or self harm, where you get the obvious. It’s o reductionist. The face is exactly where we should be looking if we want to check how someone we know is feeling, she says. This is the case. Just because they’re not curled in a foetal position under their desk doesn’t mean your colleague isn’t struggling and may need help. She says the headclutcher shots also reduce whoever personhood is photographed as their face is usually barely seen.

Now a campaign was launched by Time to Change -an antistigma campaign run by mental health charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness.

They want to change the way mental health stories are illustrated in the media, and have called it Get The Picture. Of course research conducted by the campaign group found that 80% of the 2000 respondents said the headclutcher image didn’t convey how it feels to have a mental health problem.

Adam Goldberg from the stock photo agency Alamy says the headclutcher is a complex example ‘decisionmaking’ processes journalists have to make when choosing how to illustrate a story. Goldberg says that time is also an issue for journalists when it comes to stories about sensitive issues such as mental health. However, sometimes there just isn’t the time for every journalist to have an editorial discussion about what pictures are used. We’re talking ‘minute by minute’ turnarounds here, he says, Our clients often need images straight away.

Of the campaign, Time to Change has released a series of pictures, free to use by the media via photography company Newscast, that they feel more accurately portrays mental health, and are easy for journalists to access.

While doing everyday activities, talking, or sensitively shot anonymous pictures, showing face more than usual, they include images of people, all of whom have experienced mental health problems at some point.

The campaign has received the UK backing Picture Editors Guild, which is just as keen to see some fresh, realistic and more positive images associated with mental health problems. Ultimately, the campaign hopes to end stigma around mental health, and says that imagery is one step wards achieving that. Notice that the UK Picture Editors’ Guild Chairman, Alan Sparrow, says their members can have a powerful effect on mental portrayal health problems via images in the media. It is the first time in 40 years that the Guild has supported a charity campaign.