Stuffed with Stigma

by Kimberly Rider

If you were to see these stuffed animals in a store you may think that they were your average every day adorable cuddly plush toys. However, take a closer look at them and you can see that these fluffy characters are more than just your average stuffed animals; they are stuffed to the gills with stigma toward mental illness.

A German toy company has developed these toys calling them “Psychiatry for the Abused Toys”. Each animal has a diagnosis and includes access to a virtual online clinic called “The Asylum”. This virtual set up allows you to be the doctor and treat the symptoms of the animals with various mocking methods such as therapy provided by a puppet sock and Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The game takes place in a bleak virtual waiting room with a noticeable sign on the wall that has a noose with a red slash through it. Players are urged to select an animal and “solve” the problem by treating the stuffed animal using some of the methods listed above.

 

At first glance, these toys might seem educational—using stuffed animals to teach children about sensitive topics is nothing new.  But upon visiting the website and the virtual game, I was disgusted. While I acknowledge that some things may get “lost in translation” and that culture plays a large role in people’s experiences with mental illness, this was simply not acceptable to me. 

Toys such as these only help to perpetuate negative stereotypes about mental illness, and by extension stigma, from an earlier age.  Instead of having toys that teach children about “institutions” and emphasize negative aspects of some people’s experiences with mental illness, why don’t we have toys that teach children about recovery?  Teaching children to ridicule, stigmatize, and worst of all, believe false things from such an early age can only be harmful.  If children are indeed our future, let’s join together to ensure that they are getting positive messages about themselves, about overcoming challenges in their life, and about the world as a whole

http://parapluesch.com/catalog/

The author may be reached at http://cnsantistigmaprogram.org/. This article was posted in the STOMP newsletter for Mar. 2011. It is not yet archived at their site.

Reposted at http://www.darkestcloset.blogspot.com/