Experts establish four themes to the misinformation contained in videos with a #mentalhealthtips hashtag
More than half of top 100 mental health TikToks contain misinformation, study finds
Thousands of influencers peddle mental health misinformation on social media platforms – some out of a naive belief that their personal experience will help people, others because they want to boost their following or sell products.
As part of a Guardian investigation, experts established clear themes to the misinformation contained in videos posted with a #mentalhealthtips hashtag on TikTok.
- 1. Pathologising normal emotions: Several videos about borderline personality disorder suggest symptoms that are everyday experiences – such as feeling anxiety when people change plans, experiencing mood swings, a fear of abandonment and mirroring people’s behaviour to be liked. Another video purports to show how depression manifests in the workplace as a lack of concentration, feeling tired, having low energy levels, a loss of appetite and irritability.“While some of the ‘symptoms’ overlap with depression, these can be attributed to a range of afflictions and struggles,” said Liam Modlin, a therapist and psychology researcher at King’s College London.
- 2. Misusing therapeutic language: One video said that people with bipolar disorder experience mood swings because their emotional pendulum swings more widely and rapidly than most. However this is a misunderstanding, since people experience extended mood changes over periods of weeks rather than rapid “mood swings”. “This is an example of misappropriating a mental health diagnosis to wrongly explain or justify behaviour,” said Dan Poulter, a former health minister and NHS psychiatrist. “A person with bipolar disorder may find this trivialising of their experience of living with a debilitating and serious mental illness.”…..
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