Upsetting mental health comments by the Telegraph’s London Editor
By Liz Lockhart
A headline over the weekend on www.blogs.telegraph.co.uk immediately caught my attention. It read ‘Ken Livingstone: new healthconcerns as multiple personality disorder detected’.
Anyone with an understanding of this condition may well have felt immediate concern over Mr. Livingstone’s mental health. When reading on, it was clear that Ken Livingstone has no such disorder and that the writer of the blog was trying to be clever or witty. However such a harmful and ignorant portrayal of mental health is anything but intelligent.
The piece claims that Ken has been duplicitous in his views. It is this duplicity that leads the author to speculate 'multiple personality disorder'. I am concerned that the headline grabbed attention by implying that Ken Livingstone had a debilitating mental health condition when, in fact, the writer is simply pointing out negative character traits.
I have had enough of having a mental health condition attached to anything and everything negative in a human being. The acceptance and understanding of mental health disorders is hampered at every turn by media reporting of this nature.
Committed a crime? – must be because of poor mental health…got a character flaw? – must be mentally ill…lost your temper?…must be mentally disturbed! No! mental health has very little to do with crime, dishonesty or temper outbursts. The Mental Healthy article called ‘Misconceptions, crime and mental health disorders’ was written to dispel the myths about any connection of this nature and Andrew Gilligan would do well to read it.
Andrew Gilligan is the Telegraph’s London Editor and writer of this blog. There is a short introduction to the piece which reads ‘This is where I write about London politics, London life and many other things I’m interested in, well beyond the capital…….Got a tip or a story? Email me at [email protected]. If, like me, you find this sort of reporting/blogging distasteful perhaps you should send him your tips on how he could change his outlook on mental health!
