TThe risk to reality TV contestants’ mental health increases year after year as broadcasters and producers continue to push boundaries to make more interesting and enticing entertainment. But while psychologists are increasingly called upon to give advice on such productions, experts believe they are not always appropriately qualified and their advice is not necessarily followed up.
Television and film companies are increasingly working to protect contestants’ mental health after allegations of manipulative and coercive treatmentand the suicide of contestants on Love Island, The Jeremy Kyle Show and other reality shows. They are also under pressure to attract audiences amid growing competition and financial pressures.
“I think in any project we have to keep an audience on their toes. And that’s why we need to keep pushing the genres and the boundaries to make more interesting and engaging TV,” said Dr. Howie Finea consultant clinical psychologist who worked on Channel 4’s The Jury: Murder Trialwhich aired last week.
“We have this morbid curiosity, which I think shows in the rise of true crime documentaries and shows like The Jury, where we are increasingly intrigued by the dark. And if we keep pushing those boundaries, that means greater and greater risk.”
Fine is one of a growing number of media production psychologists hired to assess participants and develop strategies to boost their resilience and support them throughout the production process.
On high-profile shows with the budget to pay for such support, the risks to participants are better contained than ever before, says Fine, who has also contributed to SAS Who Dares Wins, The Traitors UK and other shows through his company Mindzone Media.
However, he said it was complex work. “I’d say it’s up there with psychosis, eating disorders and self-harm because you have so much potential risk.” But “media psychologist” is not a protected title, unlike Fine’s, which means anyone can call themselves one.
Last week the British Psychological Society (BPS) released a guide of media production psychologists to make it easier for companies to get the right help. “It is essential that the psychologists used by production companies have the necessary skills, training and registration to ensure the protection of all participants,” says Prof John Oates, the chairman of the BPS’s media ethics advisory group.
Some formats present greater challenges than others. The Jury: Murder Trial involved replaying a trial using actors and filming the jurors’ deliberations to see if they reached the same conclusion as the original jury, with the added twist of a secret second jury also taking part . Participants were not only exposed to graphic testimony and navigating disagreements with fellow lawyers, they were also aware of the public scrutiny that would likely await them after the broadcast.
As a result, the amount of consideration and care that went into the production process was “unprecedented,” Fine said. Yet, even with careful consideration and planning, there is an element of unpredictability in any production.
“We can do a relatively good job of talking to participants to get an understanding of how they would react to any scenario within their normal environment. But when you put them in a movie studio, a jury environment or a social experiment, you take them out of their norm,” Fine said.
“You also have to consider their motivations: there will be the overt motivations they will tell you about, but there may also be further motivations, such as seeking public exposure and increasing their social media profile. If that’s their driving force, it already skews how they’re likely to act.”
Further complicating matters, at other productions psychologists say they are not always fully informed about the details of a show, or employed throughout the production process.
Oates said: “Broadcasters and production companies are always looking for new formats, or adaptations to formats, and these tend to involve new challenges that put psychological pressure on contributors.
“If a psychologist is to properly assess whether a contributor is sufficiently resilient to cope and does not have vulnerabilities that could cause them psychological harm, it is essential that they know the specifics of these challenges. But the way productions often work is that they tend to either keep it very secret, or make it up immediately.”
Psychologists’ recommendations are not always implemented by production teams. “Without the support at a senior level, with a production company taking everything on board [the psychologist] say, it’s just a boxing exercise,” says Fiona Fletcher, head of production and welfare at Brighton-based ScreenDog Productionswhich creates factual and social experiment shows including The Jury: Murder Trial.
Dr Matthew Gould, a consultant clinical psychologist and independent adviser to ITV, said: “What we know is that successful duty of care requires working at the contributory, crew and corporate levels. There are many positive initiatives that have been levels are set, but it is essential that all the separate parts are pulled together. Risk is dynamic, so we need to closely monitor what causes harm and, more importantly, identify which safeguards have the greatest positive impact.”
Fletcher said it’s not just the most obviously disturbing programs that need this kind of approach. “Even if you’re in a light-hearted documentary, maybe about a house in the country, people need to be supported because we’re asking them to tell us about their personal lives, their experiences.
“Some people can handle it very well. Others can handle it very well on the surface, and then they come out the other side and feel emotionally destroyed by it.”
