I saw it most recently in The New York Times, in the headline pictured above and a recent masthead editorial: “Equal Coverage For The Mentally Ill.” It’s all over, from The Boston Globe — “New Era for the Mentally Ill“ – to The Wall Street Journal - "Crime and The Mentally Ill." Just about any media outlet you care to name.
What’s so bad about "the mentally ill"? Isn't it reasonable shorthand in the usual headline space crunch?
In a word, no, says Dr. Summergrad, psychiatrist-in-chief at Tufts Medical Center and chair of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. He sees two main problems with it. First, the definite article, "the."
"Imagine if I said that about any other group. It suggests that people who suffer with these conditions are somehow other than us, and can be put in a discrete and often stigmatized category. It creates a sense of otherness that is not the reality, statistically, of these illnesses."
Any other group? I try a thought experiment, the headline "Equal coverage for the women." Weird. "New era for the gays." Offensive. "Crime and the blacks." I get the point.
Click on the link below to read the full article
Source material from Common Health