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Jessica Hatt
Mrs. Kirkpatrick
AP/ECE English 12
October 9, 2015
The True Horror Story: the Stigma of Bipolar
Disorder with Psychotic Features
A teenage girl runs through the woods in the middle of the night, tripping over every root
and tree branch in her dimly lit path; in the distance a chainsaw wurrs and a figure steps into the
light laughing maniacally to the tone of the suspenseful background music. With a click of the
television remote control, the channel switches to the hum of a news report sparked with
buzzwords: murder, manic, psychotic, tragedy; the screen is illuminated with a photograph of a
man that has a sinister expression and cold eyes next to a picture of his opposite, a smiling,
cheerful family man. These two media spectacles, a horror movie and a late-night news
broadcast, share the commonality of their main subject, the villain; both are centered about a
person expressing bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Regularly, people with the mental
illness of bipolar disorder with psychotic features are falsely branded as dangerous individuals
prone to explosive outbursts of nonsense, through the damaging stigma of the disease insinuated
by portrayal of hallucinations in movies and news broadcasts created for entertainment value.The
paramount method to end the stigma is to halt the use of hallucinations and psychotic killers in
the media as classic staples of violence for entertainment and amusement, instead focusing on
the reality of the disease. By debunking the stigma, people afflicted with bipolar disorder with
psychotic features will be unrestrained to participate actively in their communities and feel
embraced with support rather than cruelly ostracized.
People who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features are haunted by
labels that characterize them as violent and unpredictable. The disease and diagnosis itself is
blanketed in generalizations about the extent of symptoms. As investigated by Benedict Carey,

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bipolar disorder has spiked in recent diagnoses, applying to almost any explosive, aggressive
[individual](Carey). The actual mental illness should encompass dramatic shifts in moods and
activity level, from mania to depression, but does not necessarily imply violence or aggression as
being a factor. With the addition of psychotic features, there is the added stigma of being
deranged or insane. In combination, the stigma is amplified as the subject is scrutinized and
thought to be prone to lash out at something no one else can see. After the initial diagnosis and
subsequent hospitalizations. patients have discerned, as Michael Hatt has, that people to whom
they have discussed their mental illness with tend to walk on eggshells around me...They dont
want to upset me(Hatt). Despite evidence to the contrary, the publics general attitude is of
caution and wariness. This reaction is heightened when people given proof that a person has
recently experienced symptoms such as mania, psychosis, or severe depression, even it the
individual has since been treated by licensed psychological professionals.The hallucinations and
delusions associated with psychosis induce fear due to the misconception that the person may
turn crazy at any moment. Even those as close as family members are hyper-aware for any sign
of abnormality, even if in reality the behavior or mood fits well within the spectrum of natural
human reactions. This stigma is immensely damaging to those with bipolar disorder with
psychotic features as they are no longer able to interact with the rest of the world without every
one of their behaviors being scrutinized for an explosion violent outbursts or disintegration of
cognitive reasoning.
The stigma of bipolar disorder with psychotic features is predominantly escalated through
the portrayal of an imagined correlation between hallucinations and murder in news broadcasts.
Particularly in the case of local news stations, the focus of news is centered upon homicides and
crimes in the surrounding areas. As similar stations with the same stories from the same area

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battle for viewers, the reporters attempt to draw the attention of the communitys residents in any
way in which they are able. This ultimately twists into a competition to dramatize the
information as much as possible; frequently heroizing the victims and revealing personal
information about the perpetrators even if the information is unrelated to the incident, such as a
mental illness of which they are diagnosed. This invasive searching is exploited if the illness
they find includes symptoms of hallucinations, such as bipolar disorder with psychotic features.
In Michigan this phenomenon developed when a man, Grant Taylor, killed firefighter Dennis
Rodeman. The author of the article, Christa Lamendola, fixated on previous problems
includ[ing] days where Taylor laid on the floor staring at the ceiling fan for hours, and others
where he believed he had been sucked into the TV (Lamendola). The incidences she refers to
have no connection to violent behavior and had occurred months previously, after which he
received hospitalization. However, Lamendola asserts a correlation between the murder he
committed and his mental illness. Instances and dramatizations such as those in the case of Grant
Taylor, stigmatize the mental illness. The public is naturally searching for a way to assign reason
to the actions of a murder or an act of violence and in introducing the factor of mental illness, an
outlet arrises. The scapegoat of a mental illness offers a plausible cause to the seemingly random
act and allows for the community to feel safe in the comforting assumption that only people in
the similar situation as the mentally ill Grant Taylor would be able to hurt others in such a way.
The effect is that bipolar disorder with psychotic features is now associated with unprovoked
violence in the minds of practically every civilian who reads that article, despite the lack of an a
documented correlation; which, in turn, manufactures a precedence of violent behavior for the
mentally ill that is then exasperated in films.

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Cinematic features, specifically those contained within the horror genre, establish a
precedent that the perpetrators of murderous rampages are afflicted with a mental illness similar
to bipolar disorder with psychotic features. While there are some positive and encouraging
movies confronting the issues that are included with a diagnosis of a mental illness, most of the
time mental illness is equated to deranged behavior provoking fear. In most horror movies, if the
villain is not a supernatural being, it is a human plagued with hallucinations or severe mood
instabilities that is pursuing normal, everyday people. The perpetrator is brought to a point of
almost supernatural mania. Common examples include Shutter Island, a film centered about a
mental asylum housed with the criminally insane, in which all of the residents are recognized as
being outrageously violent; Psycho, in which the main character, Norman Bates, experiences
delusions and hallucinations as he acts as the epitome of the slasher killer, and American
Psycho, the villain of which is in an apparent state of mania and unable to control the violent
urges that are comically associated with that state of being. Michael Hatt easily identifies, as
most people can, the main culprits as the psychotic killer and the deranged madman who
does horrible things to people... and theyre obviously psychotic (Hatt). This adds an
extraordinary amount of stigma to the label of psychosis. Even the people suffering from
hallucinations and mood instabilities are reluctant to admit they are psychotic because as movies
portray it, being psychotic is a terrifying proposition. They attempt to qualify it, to themselves
and to others, as an isolated manic episode in an effort to lessen the perceived severity. This
rendering of the appearance of bipolar disorder with psychotic features, and similar symptoms,
frequently ignores the treatment options available to suffering individuals such as medication and
counseling. Instead, movies dramatize that there is no other option for a psychotic individual
than jail, isolation or death. These common horror story formulas are so prevalent because they

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are believable and effective at inciting fear in the audience. People are terrified by the stigma of
mental illness and in viewing a frightening film, the stigma is reaffirmed and intensified. The
movie business is not likely to halt manufacturing movies highlighting the horrors of a psychotic
person because the general population finds them entertaining and riveting to watch. The box
office acts as a true reflection of that; Psycho earning a domestic total gross of $32,000,000,
which appears meager in comparison to the $128,012,934 lifetime gross that Shutter Island has
procured (Box Office Mojo). The roots in reality of hallucinations are enough for the movie to be
considered real and for it to be able to over exaggerate any other aspect of the mental illness for
amusement purposes which ultimately creates false stereotypes about people suffering from
psychosis.
The stigma of bipolar disorder with psychotic feature is so false and twisted within the
roots of American culture, that to eliminate the stigma the general population must be educated
in the reality of the mental illness. The perception of the disorder is skewed to elicit fear and
worry in the simple stating of words associated with the disorder; psychosis, psychotic, manic,
depressive, hallucination, delusion. A phone survey performed in 1999 by a research team that
was published in the American Journal of Public Health concluded, strong stereotype of
dangerousness and desire for social distance persist(Link et al). The desire for separation of the
people afflicted with this mental illness is remarkably embedded into the thoughts of the public
that it is practically subliminal. This is most detrimental to the victims of the metal illness as the
rest of society tries to isolate them when in reality the most effective treatment is that paired with
a encouraging community that provides support for the individual to acquire the strength
necessary to overcome the illness. Therefore, in educating the general population in the clinical
symptoms not the distorted effects such as violence, and addressing the concerns they may have,

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the stigma will eventually dissolve. The addition of mental health units to the health curriculum
that is enacted within middle school and high school with a primary focus on the symptoms,
treatment, and development of a variety of mental illness has the ability to properly educate and
minimize the stigma. When the public realizes that the illness itself is not the cause of the
violence, then the news broadcasts and movies will halt exploiting it as a tool to create drama
and a speciticule. When that occurs, the circle of fear will be broken and no longer will bipolar
disorder with psychotic features be perceived as a threat to the sanctity of everyday life.
The process of education has already begun as evident of the inclusion of the topic of
mental illness in most high school curriculums and has already shown great improvement in the
acceptance of mentally ill individuals. Health classes are encouraged to discuss a range of
information varying from clinical symptoms of mental illness to the implications it may have on
a persons life. The sharing of objective data coupled with a personalized viewpoint is immensely
effective as supported by the outstanding progress demonstrated in a study performed by British
psychiatrists that established Short educational workshops can produce positive changes in
participants' reported attitudes towards people with mental health problems (Pinfold et al).
Adolescents battling their own internal conflicts of manic and depressive episodes,
hallucinations, and experimenting to find the balance of medications and therapy to best treat
their condition already have plenty of challenges without having to undergo a misunderstanding
of their illness from their peers. If students were to be exposed to the prevalence of mental illness
and the vast array of individuals that are affected by it as well as the harmful consequences of
accepting the stigma as truth, they would be less likely to terrorize their peers with insensitive
taunts of maniac and psycho that plague those with bipolar disorder with psychotic features
today. The clinical information presented at the workshops would be amplified in its significance

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with maintained repetition and the introduction of a first-person perspective into the mental
health curriculum of educational institutions. The progress could then be hastened even further if
the focus of the lessons were specifically directed towards the stigma and the perceived
relationship between mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder with psychotic features, and
violence.
It is imperative to todays society that the unjust stigma of bipolar disorder with psychotic
features is eradicated. The people afflicted with the mental illness are stereotyped as violent,
unpredictable, and unstable. They are unfairly represented in a multitude of media portrayals
generalizing the whole spectrum of the disease. If the general populace were to be educated in
the faulty correlation between bipolar disorder with psychotic features and the negative attributes
associated with it, the people afflicted would be able to participate more candidly within their
community. They could be more open to sharing their experiences with others as they would not
be afraid that they would suddenly be perceived and treated differently. By educating the general
population, the truth would then extend into the minds of mental health professionals as they too
are not immune from believing the stigma. As Michael Hatt construes, from the viewpoint of a
patient as well as a social worker, even in mental health places where you would think people
would be enlightened and understand mental illness better...people... dont understand it and...
have really rigid ideas about how to deal with it (Hatt). Therefore, in extending the education of
the truths of bipolar disorder with psychotic features to everyone at a young age, professionals
and the rest of society would be better equipped to recognize that people with mental illness are
people, not their mental illness and should be treated as such. This method would provide for a
more understanding environment so those suffering would be more willing to engage in
treatment as they would not be afraid that people would frighten away when being told about

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their recent stay at a psychiatric hospital. The prospect of being psychotic would be the
equivalent of breaking ones leg instead of being perceived as permanent irreparable damage.
People would be as willing to accept the treatment they need as if it were as obvious as a
physical ailment in addition to seeing their own potential as they exist beyond their illness. If the
general public were to be more educated on the truth behind the effect bipolar disorder with
psychotic features, then it would no longer be the the makings of a horror story, only the
remembrance of its stigma would be.

Works Cited
Box Office Mojo. IMDb.com. Web. 7 Oct. 2015
Carey, Benedict. Bipolar Illness Soars as a Diagnosis for the Young. New York Times. 4
Sept. 2007. pg. 19. Print. 26 Sept. 2015.
Hatt, Michael D. Personal Interview. 27 September 2015.
Lamendola, Christa. Ingham Co. Court Releases Grant Taylors Mental Health
Treatment Records. WLNS Channel 6 Lansing- Jackson. 21 Sept. 2015. Web. 28 Sept.
2015.

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Link B G, et al. Public Conceptions of Mental Illness: Labels, Causes, Dangerousness,
and Social Distance. American Journal of Public Health (1999) : Vol. 89, No. 9, pp.
1328-1333. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
Pinfold, Vanessa, et al. Reducing Psychiatric Stigma and Discrimination: Evaluation of
Educational Interventions in UK Secondary Schools. The British Journal of Psychiatry.
Apr. 2003. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.

Annotated Bibliography
Akkaya, C. Deniz, G. Cangr, S. and Kirli, S. The Relationship Between the Duration of
Drug Use and the Bipolar Patients Sociodemographic and Clinical Characteristics.
National Center for Biotechnology Information. (2014): n.p. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.
This study was done by turkish researchers. The actual article was in Turkish and
unavailable in English but the abstract includes valid and useful specific information in
the studys objective, method, results, and conclusion. It was cataloged on the research
database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information in the subcategory
dedicated to the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.

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The study was looked upon the use of different prescription drugs in the treatment of
bipolar disorder with psychotic features. It arises at the conclusion that there in an
increase in frequency and duration of the prescription of antipsychotic drugs in the
treatment of bipolar disorder. This is evidence that references the reality of the disease to
contrast the stigma of people with bipolar disorder with psychotic features.
Box Office Mojo. IMDb.com. Web. 7 Oct. 2015
This website is owned and operated by IMDb.com, a reputable corporation that
specializes in providing movie information online. This off-shoot of the IMDb company,
Box Office Mojo, specifically concentrates on information regarding the monetary gain
of various films. It provides up-to-date information shown by the inclusion of when the
website was last updated in the top right hand corner of the website. On various pages of
Box Office Mojo, specific gross values can be acquired for any particular movie
searched. This website provided the domestic total gross for Psycho as being $32,000,000
and the lifetime gross of Shutter Island being $128,012,934 at the time of the search. This
statistical data indicates an obsession that the public holds for horror films, such as those
listed, which contributes to the predominant tendency for the mentally ill to be assumed
to be violent.
Carey, Benedict. Bipolar Illness Soars as a Diagnosis for the Young. New York Times. 4
Sept. 2007. pg. 19. Print. 26 Sept. 2015.
Benedict Carey is a contributor for the well-known newspaper, the New York Times.
Carey specifies in writing about behavior with focus on neurology and psychiatry. The
topics he has covered intersect with most everything psychological, from the normal to
abnormal. The New York Times itself is generally considered reliable in news coverage,

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despite a slight liberal slant. The information provided in the article Bipolar Illness
Soars as a Diagnosis for the Young offers mainly qualitative information aided with
quantitative supplements. Carey explores the controversy of the issue of the burst in
diagnosing bipolar disorder in children. He addresses the argument of both sides through
referencing anecdotes of families affected as well as studies supporting the conclusion
that there is a definite rise in the number of diagnoses. This article is useful as it supports
the conclusion that bipolar disorder is being stigmatized to being ...almost any
explosive, aggressive (Carey 19) person, perhaps resulting in an over diagnosis which is
detrimental to the stigma and condition of those with the disease as it supports mass
generalizations and stereotypes.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Jena University Hospital. Cognitive
Function in Euthymic Bipolar Disorder (BP I) Patients with a History of Psychotic
Symptoms vs. Schizophrenia. National Center for Biotechnology Information. (2015).
Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
This study was performed in Germany by German researchers and therefore a translated
copy of the actual research was not available. However, the abstract including all the
major measuring tools, purpose, qualitative data, and conclusion compounded with
potential sources of error were included. The study was cataloged on the research
database of the National Center for Biotechnology Information in the subcategory
dedicated to the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.
The data revealed significant differences in the cognitive ability in people with bipolar
disorder with psychotic features versus those in people who have schizophrenia. This

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provides evidence supporting the reality of bipolar with psychotic features which is
frequently mistaken for schizophrenia.
Hatt, Michael D. Personal Interview. 27 September 2015.
Michael D. Hatt is a licensed clinical social worker with a masters degree in the field. His
previous work experience includes twenty-eight years working with the Connecticut State
Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. He began in 1986, working with
the Mobile Crisis team, deinstitutionalizing state mental hospitals. After retiring, Hatt
also was a social worker at Natchaug Hospital for three years. He is diagnosed with
bipolar disorder with psychotic features and has been hospitalized four to five times since
his diagnosis; the most recently being in August of 2015. He has been taking various
types of prescription medications to control the mania since 1980. The interview relayed
qualitative information about the stigma and treatment of the mentally ill from the
perspective of both a patient and a social worker. Within the interview, Hatt expresses his
perception that the stigma of bipolar disorder with psychotic features is created through
horror movies and other media in which the mentally ill are expressed as psychotic
killers.
Lamendola, Christa. Ingham Co. Court Releases Grant Taylors Mental Health Treatment
Records. WLNS Channel 6 Lansing- Jackson. 21 Sept. 2015. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
This news article is obtained from a local news station located in Michigan. The author is
a news anchor for that television program. While this source is not particularly reliable, it
does act a primary source for the damaging stigma that news and media elicits. The
article is biased and attempts to elicit a fear driven response in the audience. Through
qualitative descriptions of the mental health status of a man convicted with murdering a

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firefighter, they are creating a relationship in the minds of their readers that people with
bipolar disorder with psychotic features are dangerous and unpredictable.This article is
an exceptional, recent example of the adverse stigma attached to the specific mental
illness of bipolar disorder with psychotic features.
Link B G, et al. Public Conceptions of Mental Illness: Labels, Causes, Dangerousness,
and Social Distance. American Journal of Public Health (1999) : Vol. 89, No. 9, pp.
1328-1333. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
This study was performed by researchers with connections to the Division of
Epidemiology and the Division of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University in New
York as well as the Department of Sociology at Indiana University and the New York
State Psychiatric Institute. It was published in 1999 and is cataloged in the American
Journal of Public Health. The study was a phone survey questioning the public on social
acceptance of various mental illnesses and their perceived threat to the rest of society.
The study concluded that there was an awareness of the status of mental illness yet a
strong inclination among those polled that the mentally ill are violent and should be
separated from the rest of society. This study provides evidence to support the theory that
the mentally ill are stigmatized as being uncontrollably and irrationally violent.
Pinfold, Vanessa, et al. Reducing Psychiatric Stigma and Discrimination: Evaluation of
Educational Interventions in UK Secondary Schools. The British Journal of Psychiatry.
Apr. 2003. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
This was a study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry which is a product of the
Royal College of Psychiatrists. The study was a measure of the effect of short educational
workshops on teenaged students perceptions of mental illness. The results of the study

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were incredibly promising, indicating a noticeable increase in positive attitude scores in
the short term, one week later, and the long term, six months later. The researchers
created a baseline of which to compare the scores, through the use of a survey
administered before the workshops. The data outlined within this study is highly
supportive of the effectiveness of general education in halting the stigma of mental
illness.