Ransom Note Psychiatric Campaign Draws Criticism
Fri Dec 14, 2007 at 08:42:42 AM PDT
The New York University Child Study Center has begun the rollout across New York of a new advertising campaign on childhood psychiatric and developmental disorders, first in New York, and likely then across the rest of the country. Here's what they've come up with:
I can't begin to describe how wrong this seems. The dehumanising idea that individuals with mental illness and other disorders are trapped within their issues, unable to communicate, locked up and held hostage by a disorder is one I think most of us thought had been left behind decades ago.
Other ads feature ADHD, Autism, OCD and Depression. Apart from dealing with these disorders in an entirely unhelpful, stereotypical and often inaccurate way, the image of the "stolen child" is one that mental health advocates have fought against for decades. It reduces individuals to their disorders, not taking in the personhood of those with mental illness or other disorders. The ad campaign is a huge step backwards.
It's also ignited a firestorm amongst advocacy groups, many of whom would normally be opposing each others' positions, uniting them in a way never before seen, condemning this campaign.
From the New York Times:
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a national grass-roots organization of children and adults, is circulating a petition asking the Child Study Center to end the campaign.
Kristina Chew, founder of the blog Autism Vox, which has a link to the petition, says that “the reaction has been mostly outrage from parents of special-needs children, autistic adults, teachers, disability rights advocates and mental health professionals.”
“It’s rallied them around one issue, and these aren’t people who normally agree about treating autism,” said Ms. Chew, who lives in Bernards Township, N.J., and has a 10-year-old son with autism.
...
Vicki Forman, an adjunct professor of creative writing at the University of Southern California whose 7-year-old son is blind and nonverbal, learned about the campaign on Ms. Chew’s blog and said it made her distraught. "The idea of an autistic person being held hostage is a very disturbing and backward image,” she said. “Rather than promote public awareness, this reinforces stereotypes — that there is something damaged about the autistic person, something in need of a repair."
In my view, this campaign is going to be terribly damaging to parents who are concerned about their children, raising an inaccurate and horrifying spectre of a disease taking away their children, while the truth is far more complex and often optimistic. I find it difficult to believe that it will do anything other than increase intolerance and fear of those with mental illness and who seem to be somehow different (as those with Asperger's and Autism often seem), and it seems an excessively negative, simplistic, and backward way to talk about these issues.
The following quote from the New York Daily News sums things up:
"There needs to be recognition that not all attention is good attention," said Ari Ne'eman, president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network who suffers from Asperger's syndrome.
"The message that this campaign is sending, specifically that children with disabilities are shells, that somehow we have had our true selves stolen away or kidnapped ... is one that has a lot of terrible consequences."
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