Oy! Have you seen Fox’s new show “Mental”??? Hands down it is awful. Not because the acting is bad or because the sets are bad or anything, but simply because it is completely unrealistic as far as the mental health aspect of it goes! I watched the first episode and I thought “oh wow…this is pretty bad, but maybe it will get better.” Then I suffered through the second episode which was even worse than the first episode! Seriously, if any network was to depict any other group of people like they are doing with mental patients, they would be sued in zero seconds! But, it isn’t like it is just painting the patients in a bad light. It is basically making a mockery of the entire mental health system and the psychiatric profession. Not exactly being anti-psychiatry about the mental health system either, but it is like the writers have NO IDEA about anything related to mental health, so they are just making EVERYTHING up!!! Get a clue people! This show bites hard!
(And by the way, the clip above is from one of the more realistic parts of the show…where the psychiatrist gets naked! lol)
kristinbell.org 
You are right about this show being very unrealistic in the way they depict mental health. It should be canceled or at least reviewed so that the can change it to resemble the real side of mental health and psychiatry, so that the general public can get the correct information.
you are wrong about one thing… the acting IS horrible. that british guy is so wooden, and walks around smiling like an imbecile ALL the damn time. I want to just punch him.
as for unreality how about when they gave a scalpel to the delusional doctor so he could cut his fake baby out of his wife’s belly… and they just trusted that he wouldnt do it… even while the grinning idiot doctor who runs the place tried to goad him into doing it!!!!
wtf???
What a joke! My God! And here I thought Fox News had hired all the good writers for their news broadcast. How wrong I was! First of all, it plays off of an ignorant stereotype about psychosis. Secondly, in real life, if anyone did act like that, the cops would have them on the ground in two seconds flat. Tasers work. And cops like to use them (unfortunately). “Mental” is Retarded!
How do you know about them making a mockery of the mental illnesses. I’m going into the field of Psychology and I have always been interested in the mental disorders so I’ve tended to spend more time learning about those. Now in the first episode I thought they did a wonderful job at potraying the disorder, and actually giving you an idea of what it is like being schizophrenic. As well in other episode, showing how depression might look like to someone, or anxiety, dellusions, gender disorder. They are all real things and if you people had ever even looked at a DSM you’d see that the writers did there homework when it came to treatment and diagnoses.
Now are there some things that are irrational and unrealistic, yes, but would people watch it if it was a psychiatrist coming in looking at their chart and doing 45 minutes of psychotherapy? No they wouldn’t, so you get some non-conventional treatments, which frankly are exciting and instead of making fun of the disorders I think it really does show sides of mental disorders that are true and touching. So all of you should just get over it.
It amazes me how close minded people are when it comes to television. I think this is an excellent show and did a very good job at tiding me over till House returns. As far as unrealistic it is alot more realistic than Fringe and it is doing very well. I really hope they keep this one around for awhile. Also this show is not meant to inform the general public of anything it is meant to entertain it is not a documentary. Anybody who thinks a TV show should teach people or inform them needs to be mentally evaluated.
Dear Connie,
I know they are making a mockery of mental illness, because I KNOW about mental illness. I have lived with schizophrenia for more than 20 years! I also have studied psychology and read extensively. Dealing with my own mental illness has given me a first hand experience about EVERYTHING including mental hospitals. I’m sorry, but you really have NO CLUE about actual mental illnesses if you think the show is realistic at all!
I’m a little late to the party… I just watched the whole first season and loved it. It isn’t less accurate than House, Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, ER- just unrealistic in a different way. As a mental patient who has been hospitalized twice, each time less than a week, I find it portrays the rarer mental illnesses quite well. Real mental health wards are sad and disturbing and not TV material.
Great site!
If you think that the portrayal of the mental health profession is not correct, you obviously have never heard of Milton Erickson who was a bit of a maverick, but got results when no one else did. You could even say that Erickson went so far as to join people in their reality in order to help them find their way back to this reality. Look him up. He looked for ways to help people and did not worry too much about how it looked to others. He did not mind looking foolish if it helped someone.
Dan
is this show over? Hope i didnt miss it! I did not even know about it. I got schizophrenia too.. Think the trick to it all is to TAKE your MEDS each and every day.
I haven’t seen the show lately, so I think it might have gone away. You might be able to find it on the internet.