Question: “Explanations of abnormality have become increasingly dominated by the medical model” Give a brief account of the medical model and consider its strengths and weaknesses.
This definition of abnormality makes the assumption that mental illness had the same causes as physical illness. They usually affect the brains biological processes; however some mental illnesses do not follow this rule such as Alzheimer’s. There are four main ways in which the medical model explains mental illnesses and they are infection, biochemistry, genetics and Neuroanatomy.
General paralysis is explained by infection as it is caused by the sexually transmitted disease syphilis. It eventually causes the person to become intellectually impaired before dying. All mental disorder
The good thing with this model is that it recognises some disorders are more biological in origin, and treatments offer help where other models have failed. The diathesis stress theory takes both environmental and biological factors into account which means it is a fairer way of defining abnormality. Ethically the medical model is good as it removes all blame from the individual with the disorder, whereas other models may not.
Meehl (1962) and Rosenthal (1970) developed the diathesis stress theory which states that it is not an abnormality which we develop but it is a predisposition to getting it. This can be worked out by looking at a patients family background for certain disorders over many generations to look for genetic markers for a particular disorder. Disorders such as depression a
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