Editorial — Public discussion of depression helpful but…

WEDNESDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — Every time a celebrity dies, it seems, the media want to find a broader message than the death itself. In the case of Robin Williams, the story has moved on from the shock of his suicide and praise for his comic genius to the issue of depression.

Specifically, physicians and psychologists are being quoted ad nauseam about the “stigma” of depression, about the need to recognize symptoms, the importance of seeking help.

Whether or not there’s a stigma to suffering from depression is arguable. Perhaps, in the small minds of a few, depression is regarded as a phoney illness or something to be scorned, but the media’s assumption that there is a general stigma seems more a launching point for finding another angle to a story than anything else.

Williams himself felt no stigma, publicly speaking out on many occasions about his alcoholism and depression and was, in fact, seeking help only recently for his depression.

Certainly, there’s broad-based misunderstanding of depression, but today’s society is much more enlightened about it than in the past. If the media want to talk about the stigma of depression and mental illness, they should at least put it into historical context and do some analyzing of the progression of attitudes on the issue, good and bad.

General George S. Patton, for example, was a brilliant military strategist but he didn’t understand the human brain and its reaction to trauma. The 1970 movie Patton, starring George C. Scott as the general, paid much attention to an incident in which he slapped a soldier suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome, then known as shell shock.

Such were the attitudes of the day.

There is no shame in depression, addiction or mental illness of any kind, and insisting that the public in general thinks there is only raises the issue in a negative context. Now, whether there’s adequate support for those who suffer from these diseases is quite another matter.

The experts who argue that the media should stop publicizing the details of how famous people die tragic deaths should also be careful what they wish for. We do not need to know, perhaps, the details of what position Williams was in when his body was found, as some media described yesterday.

But it’s fair to know that he hanged himself, because that explains how he died. There’s an appropriate line to be drawn in describing events that is in keeping with community standards. Sometimes the media have trouble finding it, but throwing a veil over all information about tragic events is as unhelpful as making unproven assumptions.