A woman with a custard phobia features on This Morning (2022). Therapy is effective but are her mental health symptoms appropriate for entertainment?
On an episode of British daytime television programme This Morning (17January 2022), celebrity therapists Nik and Eva Speakman take a phone call from Michelle, a woman seeking help for her phobia of custard who proceeds to gag at the mention of the word throughout their conversation. The presenters, Phillip Schofield and Rochelle Humes, laugh each time this happens. After being aired on television, the clip went viral on social media and generated national headlines on news websites like Metro1, Birmingham Live2, and The Daily Star3. As Eva says in a follow up episode (10 February 2022):
“The clip may have caught the attention of the nation and given everyone a bit of a laugh, but for Michelle, this is no trifling matter”.
In this follow-up episode, Michelle is taken to a supermarket, where she describes her physical symptoms of anxiety (e.g., nausea, sweating) as she gets closer to a stand positioned by the show which features a large bowl of custard and various custard-filled desserts. Michelle then has therapy with the Speakmans where the audience learn she had originally developed this fear after being force fed lumpy custard at school. A month later, Michelle is now able to take a bath in custard.
This programme features an individual with a distressing phobia of an irrational object. On the one hand, treatment was provided to help Michelle overcome her debilitating fear. In addition, therapeutic scenes provide important contextual information behind what it’s like to experience phobias, for example having feelings of shame, physical discomfort, and difficulty in confronting childhood experiences. On the other hand, while Michelle acknowledged in her case “You can’t help but have a laugh”, the show presents mental health problems in a light-hearted way for the purpose of entertaining viewers. It can be questioned what effects this has on how seriously members of the public see phobias and mental health problems more broadly.
