Pictures vs. words when describing mental illnes
A picture is worth a thousand words is a quotation that has been used over and over by those who want to point out that the superiority of pictures over words. It may or may not be true, or may be true in some instances but not in all, but it is one phrase that is marked indellibly in our mind.
However, Pictures are worth a dozen words when trying to read the Italian language surrounding the pictures of the famed Renaissance artist Caravaggio. The picture spoke to me while I was perusing books in a used book store and, although not being able to read a word of Italian, I immediately bought the book. It remains one of my treasures.
Words on the other hand, astute picture puzzle experts might decide, are superior in that they originally made up the thousand words. Therefore many separate words -- letters of the alphabet -- multiplied by one thousand would prove the superior choice. Who is say, since there are no studies being done to refute either claim.
The nearest to that is an assertion by the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2000 by a group of Auckland psychiatrists that "Young viewers are being socialised into stigmatising conceptions of mental illness". Although they had nothing to back this claim other than a week of saturating themselves in these presentations, they reached the foregoing conclusions that indeed pictures -- in this case moving pictures -- are influential. Yet, modifying that statement when put along side words as likewise worthy of influence, is that fact that both were used in the television shows.
Does it matter which create more problems of the mind, and lead to violence, wrongful thinking, and to either mental health or mental illness? Of course not. Each enhance or violate the other. And thinking to ten years hence and adult television as well as children televison and their words and pictures, there is no doubt that both contribute to defamations of both body and mind. The more mentally healthy switich channels or when they cannot find what is mentally enlightening without being damaging to their tender minds, they switch off television and instead read a good book.
What's the antidote against unwanted pictures versus unwanted words and which decreases the damage to brain nerve cells and pathways? Switching off the television, monitoring shows for children and bypassing highprices movies at the theater that show no responsibility to mental health, either in the young or the old.
Words are by far less invasive. Mostly they sit quietly on shleves and cause no problems unless read. If, as an example, a family member is not happy with the chosen television program, they can choose to go into an other room and read a book. Even if the book is somewhat raunchy and potentially mentally unhealthy, the mind that is being comprimised is but one, not the whole family.
On the other hand, if a family is watching a television program together, it most likely is one that is wholesome and appealing to whole family. It is something that they all can share in and exchange points of view and talk about among themselves for days afterward. It binds them together and gives them something in common. This certainly is mentally healthy.
Allthough nothing definitive has been proven about words and pictures and which are more mentally assaulting or mentally uplifting and therapeutic, it can be said both need improvement, and both have possibilities for a better overall education for us all. Yet where it comes to words, their ability to tell the truth gains over pictures. Showing the truth via pictures is a little more difficult.
An example of truth telling is the origin of the sentence "Pictures are worth a thousand words". No one knows for sure where it origninated, or with whom, although when Googling many sources come up. It has invaribly been credited with being a Chinese proverb, a Japanese proverb, originationg with a author back in 1921, and to several other possible sources. We must therefore be satisfied with knowing that the words did not spring by themselves, they had an author, and when we use the sentence in a writing we can simply credit it to an anonymous source.
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