How podcasts can impression attitudes round psychological well being

Tens of millions of individuals hearken to podcasts every year. Podcast content material is numerous, with well-liked genres together with true crime, comedy, and society and tradition.

In our analysis, we’re particularly focused on podcasts that speak about psychological well being.

Folks hearken to psychological health-themed podcasts for a lot of causes: to grasp psychological well being points higher, to study self-help methods to assist their psychological well being, and for inspiration or motivation.

Podcasts also can convey consideration to points confronted by marginalized communities.

Folks dwelling with psychological well being points commonly face stigma and discrimination, comparable to being unfairly handled in workplaces and healthcare settings.

Podcasts have the potential to boost consciousness about unfair therapy and problem myths. There are specific options of podcasts which might doubtlessly impression listeners’ information and attitudes round psychological well being.

In our newly revealed analysis, we’ve got explored how podcasts about psychological well being could be designed in a approach that reduces stigma and discrimination locally.

Highly effective storytelling

Podcasts could be “edutainment”: an effective way to attract listeners’ consideration to necessary matters and discover complicated points.

Conversational language, professional interviews, compellingly crafted tales and intelligent use of sound and music may help make these matters dynamic and fascinating.

Podcast listening is intimate. Folks typically hearken to podcasts alone through headphones, making the expertise immersive. Many podcast listeners really feel very linked to podcast hosts and visitors. In addition they join with different listeners by way of on-line communities.

Podcasters can use these options to attach with listeners round complicated matters like psychological well being. Consequently, listeners might take in and belief messages acquired by way of the podcast.

Researchers argue participating with private tales may help individuals expertise empathy—like they’re entering into the sneakers of another person. They are often taken on an emotional journey, which may help them see issues otherwise.

TV host and media character Osher Günsberg speaks candidly with Todd Sampson about psychological sickness on Günsberg’s podcast Higher Than Yesterday. Throughout a two-part episode Günsberg dives into his experiences with alcohol use, intense anxiousness, psychosis and post-traumatic stress.

The episodes problem listeners’ perceptions about what it means to be unwell, demonstrating how an individual can appear to be thriving on the surface, whereas struggling on the within. Günsberg additionally talks overtly about how stigma prevented him from accessing remedy and medicine when he first wanted it.

It is an emotional episode. Each Günsberg and Sampson shed tears by the tip—and a few listeners in all probability did, too.

Voices that matter

Contact with individuals dwelling with psychological well being points is an efficient option to cut back stigma. This contact doesn’t need to be face-to-face to be efficient.

Many well-liked podcasts focus on listening to instantly from individuals with lived expertise. Within the podcast Psychological Sickness Glad Hour, host Paul Gilmartin explores psychological sickness, trauma, and habit by way of actual tales—each his personal, and his visitors’ experiences.

Some podcasters additionally share lived expertise on podcasts which aren’t particular to psychological well being.

Creator and activist Aubrey Gordon commonly speaks about her expertise with consuming problems whereas co-hosting the podcast Upkeep Part, which debunks well being fads and wellness scams. Her private disclosures make the episodes much more participating, and illustrate the real-life impression of those fads and scams.

Private tales

As a part of our analysis, we’ve got been speaking with individuals who have lived expertise of complicated psychological well being points, media professionals, healthcare professionals and office psychological well being champions.

We seemed on the options of podcasts they felt might successfully fight stigma.

Our contributors felt actual tales from individuals with lived expertise, shared through podcast episodes, are impactful:

“That is psychological well being, and it is stigma, however on the root of it, it is tales, it is private tales. It is lived expertise and that is what persons are resonating with. And that is what connects [with listeners]. And it is sort of from that, the behaviors, the attention, the habits change sort of will get a leaping off.”

Our contributors additionally advised us they appreciated episodes that explicitly talked about stigma and discrimination, fairly than simply speaking about lived expertise typically.

“It could be good to have a podcast that’s really going to deep dive into among the actual points […] and why individuals battle.”

Although tales could be highly effective on their very own, contributors additionally felt podcasts might additionally spotlight the very actual impacts of marginalization and inform listeners how they’ll make optimistic change. As one participant advised us:

“[With] actual tales, they’ll relate to it extra, to the human face to it […] it is not simply an summary factor that they see like a statistic or TV or like, issues that they can not actually see […] it is really a human individual, present process actual feelings.”

It is sensible many psychological well being organizations and advocacy teams are releasing podcasts—they’re well-liked, accessible, participating, and a novel option to share actual tales. We suspect podcasts will proceed for use within the struggle in opposition to stigma and discrimination.

Our subsequent steps are to launch our personal psychological well being podcast which we hope will impression listeners’ attitudes in a optimistic approach. We have now taken on the recommendation from these we interviewed, and we’re at present exploring the impression of listening to this podcast on listeners’ attitudes and behaviors in direction of complicated psychological well being points. We plan to launch it to the general public later in 2023.

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