Selling the female image as mental patient

Tabulations of the sex and role (patient, helping professional, other) of all human images found in advertisements for psychoactive drugs in one half of the issues of The American Journal of Psychiatry from years 1963 to 1974 were made. Women were found to be portrayed as mentally ill significantly more often than men, while the images of men were used more frequently as doctors and others. These phenomena were discussed with references to attribution, suggestion, self-fulfilling prophecy, role playing, and the tendency to hospitalize, drug, and diagnose women as mentally ill.This article is based in part on a paper presented at the 83nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, September 1, 1975