Here’s my new name for “reality TV.” After the stunt “Dr. Phil” pulled yesterday, characterizing people with post-traumatic stress disorder as “monsters” and “damaged goods,” it’s time to call this type of media what it is: Monstrosity TV.
First, two definitions:
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the current official name for a condition caused by one or more overwhelmingly traumatic experiences. It is a common outcome for combat veterans, but it also sometimes results from trauma in civilian life. There is a movement among some healthcare professionals and veterans’ advocates to redefine PTSD not as a mental illness but as a form of brain injury; I find this reframing both logical and destigmatizing.
- Phillip McGraw, or “Dr. Phil,” is, according to Wikipedia, “an American television personality, author, former psychologist, and the host of the television show Dr. Phil, which debuted in 2002. McGraw first gained celebrity status with appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the late 1990s.” Multiple sources report that he is not currently licensed to practice psychology. Dr. Paul G. Mattiuzzi (who is a licensed psychologist) wrote a detailed blog post explaining why McGraw is able to do what he does on TV without a license.
The fact that McGraw is unlicensed is a beef for another day. This post is much simpler: You don’t have to be a licensed mental health professional, or any kind of professional–you don’t even have to be a grown-up–to know it’s harmful to call a person a monster or damaged goods. Poll any kindergarten class:
“Boys and girls, is it nice to call someone a monster?”
{“Noooooooooooooo, Ms. Staaaaaanleeeeey!”}
“Would that hurt your feelings?”
{“Yeeeeeesss, Ms. Staaaaaanleeeeey!”}
“Should you do it, then?”
{“Noooooooooooooo, Ms. Staaaaaanleeeeey!”}
Apparently Dr. Phil and his peers in Monstrosity TV, which I also sometimes call exploitainment, either never read or rejected the lessons of Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1988).
Rationalize this all you want, but you’ll never make it OK. Here are some of the arguments I hear in support of this category of media:
- “They appeared on the show of their own free will.” The media definition of “free will” is not the same as the definition followed by healthcare professionals. In my world (i.e. the real world, where people who legally portray themselves as mental health experts are licensed), free will means autonomy, and autonomy entitles the person to informed consent. Informed consent is defined as agreeing to something after you have been given all pertinent information needed to make a non-coerced, non-manipulated, non-deceived choice. Further, informed consent is retractable. You have the right to withdraw your consent before, during, or after the event. In research studies, this means participants have the right to drop out mid-experiment, even if their withdrawal ruins the study. In television, this would require that all depicted parties be allowed to review and approve the final edited version of the show before it is aired, and it would also give them the right to later withdraw their consent and require (by simple request, not legal action) that the show be removed from circulation.
- “We do much more good than harm.” There is no acceptable level of avoidable human harm in this context. None. Not even a few outliers. Zero-point-zero. There are some situations in which the risk of harm could be acceptable, such as a person choosing, with fully informed consent, to undergo an experimental cancer treatment. This is not that.
- “If we didn’t do this, the problem would be unknown and countless people would go without help.” You can’t know that. You can’t prove that. The fact that you have generated demand for this and are now fulfilling that demand doesn’t qualify you as virtuous; if it did, every drug dealer would be in line for sainthood.
- “Doing some harm is inevitable in these situations. It can’t be avoided.” If you believe that, accept that, ignore documented best practices that refute that, ignore codes of ethics that forbid that, and continue to do what you do knowing it will sometimes cause harm, you missed your calling. Go back 70 years and put in an application at Auschwitz.
Yeah, I said that. If the shoe fits, you have two choices:
- Wear it as you walk the ethical low road and know that, beyond the cameras and the starstruck fans, you have colleagues who have lost respect for you.
- Wake up, recognize the flawed beliefs you’ve been exercising, tolerate the cognitive dissonance that will come with reversing your direction, and start doing the right thing.
Notice: This blog is not a substitute for individualized healthcare. Links or references to other persons or websites do not indicate endorsement by those entities.
