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Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

CannonSaltSenior Contributor23 Jan 2016, 9:54 am AEDT

Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

@NikNik - is there any chance of SANE Australia making a formal response to this article, as part of stigma watching?

http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/managing/work-in-progress/mental-illness-whos-faking-it-20160121-gmay8u.html

The thrust of it is that while it's great that there is more mental health awareness going on, some people exaggerate their mental illnesses to get their own way. It cites an academic paper from 1984, an academic book from 2009 and an academic paper from 2009 which studied first-year psychology students who were pretending to be malingerers. I don't have a great sense of whether it's accurate or not, but listing a partial list of 'things to watch out for' and finishing with 'Until the next time they get caught'... It just doesn't seem like good journalism.

6 replies

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In response to: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

Unknown userMember23 Jan 2016, 10:07 am AEDT

Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

I read that too ugh!! Though there are a few good points - the title is just crap!

In response to: Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

CannonSaltSenior Contributor23 Jan 2016, 10:10 am AEDT

Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

Quite often I think the titles aren't under the control of the author, so they can get changed to be more punchy/clickbaity... but you'd think that after the Treasurer for Sale thing with Joe Hockey, that they'd be more careful. Surely titles should be included in the journalism standards for talking about mental illness?

In response to: Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

Unknown userMember29 Jan 2016, 1:24 pm AEDT

Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

Hey @CannonSalt

Sorry I'm a bit late to the conversation, but if you want to report an article to StigmaWatch, you can do so here (you'll need to scroll down a little bit).

You can either "report" or "celebrate". You just need to read over the criteria to see if the article is appropriate for reporting.

There are also tips on how you can contact the media outlet directly.

I hope that helps!

In response to: Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

AppleblossomSenior Contributor29 Jan 2016, 2:08 pm AEDT

Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

Great call @CannonSalt

I just looked at it ... and the author has just added an apology for being insensitive, after an "enormous amount of feedback on social media".

yay ... are we finally getting through?

In response to: Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

CannonSaltSenior Contributor29 Jan 2016, 4:30 pm AEDT

Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

@Former-Member - thanks for pointing me in the right direction to report an article to StigmaWatch.

Apparently there's been some really good responses, too: http://www.buzzfeed.com/maggyvaneijk/good-people-have-mental-illnesses#.xhre9xRAZ?bodylink?

In response to: Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

AppleblossomSenior Contributor30 Jan 2016, 12:05 pm AEDT

Re: Ugh, Fairfax. "Mental illness: who's faking it?"

Thanks @CannonSalt for the 2nd link.

Anna Spargo-Ryan's clear article discussing phrases of the original offending article is a credit it to those of us who may be atypical at times.

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