Mindframe’s new guidelines for the use of images in the media around mental health, suicide and drug and alcohol misuse have been released and focus on how to help reduce stigma and discrimination while increasing representation and positive outcomes.

By Melissa Marino.

COVID-19 has put mental health in the spotlight like never before. More public discussion of mental ill-health and drug and alcohol misuse has come with heightened media coverage. And that coverage, while important, can be problematic.

Communication using bleak imagery, such as the ‘head in hands’ picture that commonly accompanies media reports around mental health, can have a negative impact on people’s lives. It can reinforce negative stereotypes, increase stigma and discrimination, and can be triggering for people who have experienced mental ill-health.

But conversely, positive and authentic images of the diverse range of people affected can help reframe the issue of mental health, improving society’s understanding and encouraging help-seeking behaviour.

To help reduce harm and maximise benefit in coverage of mental health issues, comprehensive guidelines, along with a collection of images for use free of charge has been launched.

Images matter: Mindframe guidelines for image use is a practical, research-backed resource to help communicators and the media make informed choices about the images they use, to firstly “do no harm” and secondly “aim to do good”.

To play its role in reducing harm and stigma, and increasing helpseeking and hope, the Mindframe guidelines ask that the media:

■ use a diverse range of images;

■ use images of people who have personal or lived experience only with their knowledge and permission;

■ use images that model hope and support;

■ consider images can be helpful or harmful depending on the context, issue or purpose; and

■ consider practical elements such as accessibility or style.

Christine Morgan, CEO of the National Mental Health Commission, which funded the work, says the evidence-based guidelines, developed by the mental health and suicide prevention institute Everymind, drew on extensive consultation with media and health professionals. Importantly, central in that process were people with lived experience of mental ill-health.

One of them was project co-chair and CEO of The Inner Ninja Foundation, Stefani Caminiti.

She says it’s offensive, depressing and potentially triggering to see representation of people experiencing mental illhealth as ‘crazy’ or in other ways that are stigmatising.

But by encouraging the use of images of people in everyday situations, living productive lives or experiencing happiness, the guidelines will help change audience perspectives on mental ill-heath.

“This project is really dear to my heart because I feel that it can change those narratives and normalise our mental ill-health, because it’s something that we all experience at some point in our life. And if we don’t directly experience it, we will know someone who has,” she says.

Ms Morgan says images are powerful – “they stick in our brains, they influence us”.

Stigmatising imagery illustrating mental health issues in the media hurts people, but a more positive, normalised representation helps to create a safe environment of hope in which people can identify themselves and potentially be encouraged to reach out and talk about their experiences.

Accompanying the guidelines are a set of resources for media including:

■ a checklist to tick-off key considerations;

■ guidance cards for specific issues such as image selection relating to suicide, self-harm or eating disorders; and

■ a royalty-free photo library of more than 1000 high-resolution images.

Dr Zac Seidler, Movember director of mental health training, hopes that the easily accessible Mindframe resources will empower the media to be more thoughtful in its editorial choices. Instead of the well-worn clichéd pictures such as a person sitting on the edge of a cliff, imagery used with stories about mental health or suicide prevention should be aspirational, he says.

“It should be talking about what is possible when it comes to recovery … and [reflect] that individual responsibility on its own is not the way that we are going to get out of what are really complex mental health issues,” he says. “The head in the hands imagery is done.”