During a recent episode of TV's Drew Carey Show, Drew was hounded by a dangerous man – described as a schizophrenic – who attempted to kill him, and at the end of the show, was sent to an institution to be "locked up."

Sadly, this kind of distorted media portrayal of the mentally ill is all too common.

Those who get their information about mental illness from television, newspapers, and magazines, are likely to see people with psychiatric disorders depicted as violent, evil, and incapable of holding a job – and particularly to see people with schizophrenia as having two or more personalities, like Sybil or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

"The media is full of inaccurate stereotypes," says Otto Wahl, professor of clinical psychology at George Mason University and author of Media Madness (Rutgers University Press).

In truth, people with mental illness are no more prone to violence than the population at large. And schizophrenia is not a multiple-personality disorder. It is a treatable mental disorder whose symptoms can include inability to distinguish between real and imagined experiences, hearing voices, and disorientation.

"Media images matter," Wahl says, "because they contribute to persistent stigma. And stigma is important, because it has a tremendous effect on people with mental illness."

What is stigma? Wahl describes it as shame or infamy not based on behavior or character. "The sense that others look down on them undermines opportunities for recovery," he says, noting that 75% of people with mental illness report experiencing stigma.

In the face of this discrimination, mental health consumers are organizing and speaking up. "Like people from racial and ethnic minorities, they now insist that the media treat them more favorably," says Wahl.

Efforts to combat stigma take a variety of forms. After the Drew Carey Show, for example, members of Stigma Busters – a grassroots effort of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) to protest demeaning media portrayals of the mentally ill – sent letters to the show's producers and writers. And last May, Stigma Busters generated 140 letters to the Richmond Times Dispatch to complain about editorial cartoons satirizing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's recommendations about mental illness.

Stigma Busters is part of NAMI's 5-year campaign called Open Your Mind which fights discrimination, especially in health insurance reimbursement for people with mental illness.

Elsewhere, the Atlanta-based Carter Center is attacking stigma through a program to promote better news coverage, giving five print and broadcast journalists each year a $10,000 grant to research and publish projects dealing with mental health or mental illness.

And New York City Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Alcoholism is producing a public service campaign – including radio commercials and posters on city buses and subways – seeking to dispel misconceptions and educate people about the realities of mental illness. Scheduled to begin this winter, the campaign will feature celebrities and ordinary people who have recovered from mental illness.

The more stigma is attacked, the less likely it is that people with mental illness will suffer discrimination in healthcare, housing, education, and economic opportunities. "And, says NAMI's Executive Director Laurie Flynn, "the hope is that with more positive media portrayals showing diagnosis and recovery, people who have not sought treatment will do so."