Unconscious bias and mental health – Before you read this article, please spend a minute to try and solve the riddle below (The answer is at the bottom of the page…)
A man takes his son skiing but is killed in an avalanche, which also badly injures his son. He’s taken to hospital to be operated on but, upon seeing the boy, the surgeon says: “I can’t operate on him, he’s my son…”
How is this possible?
A very similar question was asked as part of a study into unconscious bias, specifically regarding gender, by a College of Arts & Sciences psychology professor who was interested in how people unconsciously or automatically resort to certain deeply held beliefs when making decisions in life.
The study found that just 15% came up with the correct answer to the riddle above, revealing a deeply held bias in many of the participants. But very few are likely to have been consciously sexist or thinking negatively towards a particular gender when giving their answer – society, education, parenting and a dozen other factors have just conditioned them to think in this way.
This is a great example of our unconscious bias in action. We might not be aware of how a myriad of factors have combined to influence our beliefs and thoughts, but you can be sure that every decision we make in life will be subject to these biases to some extent.
When we extend this examination of our unconscious bias, one of the most interesting area are our beliefs around mental health.
Looking at the way mental health is portrayed in the media – often as a magical, mystical thing that only medication can fix – it’s easy to see how many people would develop some deeply held beliefs around certain issues, particularly if they are experiencing one themselves.
For example, someone suffering from depression would be very likely to identify with news coverage of a someone with a similar affliction – and this would, to some extent, inform the person about the nature of their depression and how society sees them and their fellow depressives. It’s informing our unconscious bias, often whether we like it or not.
Unfortunately, studies show that most people get a majority of their information on the subject from the media, often television. News websites also prominently feature mental health stories and these are rarely positive stories about people overcoming issues.
The overwhelming narrative of the media coverage that lots of people get their mental health information from is that you have this issue for life and the only way to cope is with years of medication and therapy (both of which have a poor track record)
So, for most people, their beliefs towards their mental health will have been shaped unconsciously by a thousand different radio interviews, TV programmes, chat shows, youtube videos, news stories and friends, family and society’s views.
After all, a story about someone overcoming a mental health issue – like many thousands do with The Thrive Programme every year – and leading a normal life isn’t nearly as engaging for a TV, radio or online audience as someone who’s suffering badly and tells a dramatic and emotional story about a challenging life. This might be compelling to watch, but it is not helpful for someone looking to overcome or recover from mental illness.
The big problem is this: a lot of this information in the media coverage of mental illness just isn’t accurate, and it can be deeply misleading when it comes to influencing our unconscious bias in relation to our mental health.
So, what are some common unconscious bias people hold regarding mental health?
- Probably the most unhelpful and least accurate belief is that someone is stuck with a mental health for life, or for many decades, and there’s nothing they can do about it. This isn’t true. For a majority of people who typically have sought help for something like depression or anxiety and have been given anti-depressants and therapies such as CBT, this may seem far-fetched as often their experiences with these treatments will be quite negative. Studies show they just don’t work that often. But when they take a non-medicalised training course such as The Thrive Programme, which teaches how mental health works and how to manage it so they can address the root of the issue, they very quickly overcome their issues because they have control over their mental wellbeing.
- That mental health is something that happens to you, like a magical external force. Mental health is a collection of our beliefs, thoughts, feelings and emotions that impact upon our behaviour and interact with the way we make decisions in life, big and small. None of these factors includes a magic external force or power that makes us feel depressed, anxious or emotional in certain situations – we are doing this to ourselves. This isn’t to say that someone experiencing depression is making a conscious decision to be like that or these feelings aren’t reel – but their unconscious bias towards giving depression power over them makes it very difficult for them to think otherwise. However, once the belief that depression has agency over someone’s life is turned into a positive belief that they’re in charge of their mental health, the results are life-changing.
- Mental health issues can only be treated with medication and therapy. Thanks to the widespread (and false) belief that faulty brain chemistry is to blame for lots of mental health issues, and the subsequent prescribing of medication such as SSRIs, about 80% of the population believe the brain chemistry theory to be true. It’s not. Flawed studies are partly to blame as are a slow-acting medical profession for furthering this deeply unhelpful narrative. If you’re suffering from something like an anxiety disorder, and you believe that it’s because you are chemically different – imbalanced, faulty – compared to most other people, then hope for a normal life quickly fades. So learning this isn’t true and that recovery is possible paves the way to a full recovery.
Everyone’s unconscious bias in relation to their mental health will be different and, if you’re interested in maximising your mental health so it works for you and not against, then questioning some of these personal beliefs is a great step.
Think carefully right now about things that are holding you back in life and how you may have developed particular beliefs – and biases – around that challenge (just like the many will have found after trying to answer the riddle at the start of this article) It’s an interesting exercise in self-awareness that can offer great insight into your mental wellbeing.
If you’re interesting in learning more about challenging your unconscious bias around your mental health and overcoming challenges such as depression, anxiety and phobias, please watch the video below and contact your nearest Thrive Programme Coach® for a free initial consultation.
PS The answer to the riddle is that the surgeon is the boy’s mother. Most people attempt to find a solution that involves the surgeon being a man – theboy has two fathers, for example – despite the riddle not mentioning the gender of the surgeon…
