Photography and Mental Illness: Feeding or Combating the Stigma of Invisible Pain Online and Offline

Abstract

Medical photographs and photojournalism have played a central role in creating a visual representation of illness since the nineteenth century. For some themes such as mental illness, photographs of a few exceptional cases have contributed to the stigmatization of a bigger group by depicting them as dangerous in a violent or depraved context. In the last years, digital photography and Internet have given patients and relatives the opportunity to represent themselves on a daily basis as normal people with an illness, fighting against stigmatization.

This situation raises some interesting ethical questions about how images can feed or combat stigma, questioning if people behind the diseases have been ethically represented and showing the role of the photographer in the social perception of illness and pain.