1. I've got no idea what Harold's on about. Harold, what are you on about?
2. Anyway, "the" mentally ill "have been stigmatised" for 100s of years

What Harold's "on about:"
1. I do not reduce any group to a "the." That is pure prejudice. I recognize the vast differences within every group.
2. I address individuals who do stigmatize to educate them, I do not accept their prejudice as a universal.

The techniques addressed above interest me:

1."the" mentally ill- Who reduces whom to a "the" varies over time and place. The effect seldom does. It is always negative.
2. "have been stigmatized"- The Passive Voice does not say by whom. It is who applies a prejudice that interests me, that they can be educated.

Harold

Thanks Harold. The use of the definite article 'the' when talking about 'the' mentally ill worries you. I withdraw it. It's hard to lead in to a collective adjectival clause without some form of definite or indefinite article, but you are clearly an individualist so I won't beat about 'the'.

At first blush, the gist of Jenny's article is both disturbing and timely. Evoking within, mixed feeling of anguish, empathy, smoldering resentment. The Mental Health governance have lost the plot completely, promoting a culture of indolence, sanguine indefference. The plight of possibly one third of Australians battling the Government bureaucracy, to provide resources to live normal lives.

It's a National disgrace. The Honourable Nicola Roxon and Member for Warringah Tony Abbot, should shoulder some of the blame and infamy. For too long, Govts of all persuasions have ignored this National calamity. Their social obligation - the trauma of Mental illness, and associated psychotic disorders.

Ostensibly prefering, ostrich-like, to take the high ground, cut funding and pretend the problem will take care of it self by simply ignoring it holus-bolus ! One wonders how long this narrow approach will last before we see a pandemic. People murdered on our roads, families terrorised, and the Court's jam-packed with criminal cases simply because of ineptitude, sloth and stupidity.

Our prisons are over represented with more inmates who should be in Institutions, mental hospices and receiving treatment, instead of being ignominously incarcerated.

For a Country with a GDP among the highest in the Western World, and a Defence budget bordering on 4 % of the National figure, it's positively obscene we can't provide bettter for a stigmatised minority. Anonymous, neglected, socially shunned, and largely forgotten, they are the living pariah crying out in anguish to an indifferent, hedonistic society. I have often wondered where our priorities lay ?

The Bureaucrats, bean-counters and razor gangs that wheel-and-deal in Health - both Statewide and Federal have much to answer for. The problem is exacerbating tenfold. People are suffering and dying but the band plays on in animated sonorous revelry ! Perhaps, a rebellion, quake or martial sit-in on the lawns of Parliament House might shake our pollies out of their somnambulant inertia !

Should the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission be monitoring the situation ? It's a recognised fact abuses and discrimination occur regularly in the workplace, aged care facilities, retirement homes, and mental disability

services.

From what I can glean 62 % of mental health patients don't use the services. The remainder, who can afford to pay up front, visit those GP's who bulk bill. More clinicians are working in suburban Medico establishments which provide multi services, hitherto only available in Hospitals. The efficacy often depending on management that are profit oriented. Public Hospitals emergency wards, as a consequence take the full brunt of this anomaly. No wonder there is a Health crisis, when beds reserved for the criticall ill,surgery and trauma are occupied elsewhere. Remarkably, only 7 % of the National Health budget is spent on mental health ! NSW, and Vic receive the worst funding - increases of only 1.8 % and 4.4 % per capita. Outrageous.

The lack of appropriate pharmacological supervision often doesn't meet International standards for optimal care. Less than 16 % with depression, anxiety, ADHD etc receive evidence based treatments. Paradoxically, Community consultation, understanding about available treatment ( poorly resourced ) means people with MO's receive no help at all and go without treatment.

For kickers, there should be more strategically based Community Health centres throughout Oz, to cater for the burgeoning epidemic. A substantial increase of MH centres appropriately staffed with dedicate professionals,consultant's on call, responding to 000 hot line calls 24/7.

But for the charities - St Vinnies, Salvo's, Rosie's etc that dont discriminate the walking psychiatrics, substance abuse, addictive and paranoid flotsam and jetsam of humanity, these social outcast would suffer third world apathy, distress and abandonment. Their families, loveone's and carer's inevitably shoulder most of the burden.An abrogation of basic Human rights.

If we can spend $ 80 billion on the sport of Kings, pokies, bingo and other gaming venues, surely a fraction of the Govt's excise could be funnelled into Mental Health. It's not only the wretched psychiatric cases that warrant help, the whole gamut of addiction, geriatric, psychosomatic and phobic disorders are beckoning.

Come on Mr Rudd. Show us the money.

Good article but not the answer. Lampooning is one of the roles of media, informing is another. The media uses old sellable stereotypes over and over. It started Frankenstein, the media could frighten the populace and the people would buy.

This is an argument about power. If mentally ill people could make programs about their lives the general populace would be better informed. But they don't have access to making media. Programs and articles are made by healthy folk about mad people.

Mental illness is an experience far removed from the experience of the average person. Access to this closed world is accessible only through the media and therefore the call for responsibility and information is an ethical call. However, drama involves the manipulation of emotion. Mental illness is illness of the emotions as in depressive illness (affective disorders) and is therefore fertile material for drama.

Fact - the incidence of violence in the mentally ill is the same for the general population. Mentally ill people are no more violent than anyone else. Knowing this doesn't sell newspapers or TV.
I believe that rather than condemn media for their use of stereotypes and drama involving emotionally laden scenes it would be better to understand how media works. Demystification allows a reader to see through the programming but still enjoy the moment without believing it. No media is real it is all based on someones perception and that is always flawed. All events reported are a biased account, a fantasy of the writers and producers that make it. An understanding of media is better than censorship and litigation.

Suspension of disbelief is necessary for drama to work. Suspension of belief is necessary to understand news and the propaganda programming fed to us on a daily basis.