Mental Illnesses In Pretty Little Liars And Grey's Anatomy

The availability of media in today’s society is tremendous. Individuals are bombarded with a considerable amount of media, which has become a primary source of information. However, this constant presence of a continual flow of media, negatively impacts individuals. Furthermore, media can be considered a way of creating misconceptions and stigmas. It tends to distort facts and present a biased view to the audience, creating negative notions about people or things. The media has played a massive role in shaping and perpetuating the stigmas of mental illnesses (Klin & Lemish, 2008). Two popular television shows are, ABC’s Pretty Little Liars and Grey’s Anatomy. These two dramas have a substantial amount of turmoil that causes the characters to suffer post-traumatic stress …show more content…
The girls are reunited after being estranged for a year by a mysterious, anonymous figure, “A”, who threatens not only to expose their secrets, but hurt the ones they love. This show is drama filled and puts a large emphasis on the mental illness, PTSD, as the girls suffer many traumatic events. PTSD forms after being exposed to a traumatic event, such as war, torture, physical or sexual assault or natural disasters (Rosenbaum). However, in Pretty Little Liars, only extremely violent experiences caused the girls to suffer PTSD, such as the kidnapping. Though, smaller threatening events, such as when Aria was locked up in a casket with a dead body, or when the girls were locked up in a freezer and a pottery kiln to die, or when they witnessed physical abuse, they came out mentally and emotionally unscathed. This does not portray PTSD correctly as a study conducted proved that PTSD occurs when there is any serious threat to life, physical integrity, seeing others be killed or injured or see news about a violent death of a loved one among other reasons (Breslau, Davis, Andreski, 1995). Furthermore, these