One criticism of the medical model is that it focuses to much on the symptoms, and not enough on the patient’s experiences and internal processes. This means that it may treat the disease that the patient has and make that problem disappear, but then it may lead onto another mental disorder like an after effect because of what the effects of the disease had on there life.
The medical model, although can sometimes have very effective treatments for certain mental illnesses, has its weaknesses mainly because it assumes that all mental disorders have a physical cause when actually that is not the cause, or we are not able to physically treat it. The medical model does not take note the life experiences and therefore a person having a mental breakdown, because of a family crisis, this model is useless and another model would need to be used for treatment.
Another model for abnormality is the psychodynamic model which is based upon Sigmund Freud’s theory that suggested that mental illnesses arise out of unresolved, unconscious conflicts between the id and the superego which form in early childhood. The conflict may start because of an unpleasant experience. The adult would go back to the stage (oral, anal, phallic, latency, or genital) to when the conflict started, causing the abnormal behaviour. Freud believed that the ego had defence mechanisms for these unresolved conflicts or anxiety, which is caused because of these unresolved conflicts, such as repression, which forces memories of conflicts out of the consciousness and into the unconscious mind.
Treatment using the psychodynamic model aims to transfer the repressed memories into the consciousness so that the patient can face up to the unresolved conflict. If this therapy is successful, then the patient should be able to cope better with this memory. Methods of accessing the memory are free association where the patient has to say the first thing that comes into his or her mind, or dreams where the patient describes dreams that they have had and these often give clues to what the unresolved conflicts are.
This model would be an effective treatment if it were successful as it is unlikely that the problem or any side effects would occur after the treatment. The problem with this treatment is that it take a long period of time and is unreliable as the therapist has to determine what the thought or dream that the patient explained means and the interpretation might be wrong, and so the therapy will be unsuccessful.
Other problems with this model are that the adult experiences are ignored and sometimes the cause of the mental disorder could be because of some crisis in adulthood. Freud also believed that any sexual problems caused any disorder that may have, when actually the sexual problem may be the result of poor relationships with other rather that the cause of the disorder. This model maybe ok if the medical model fails.
Another model that can be used is the behavioural model, which is based upon the social learning theory. This means that the abnormal behaviour is caused because of either watching other people do things and are rewarded for it or the patient does abnormal things and is rewarded for it in some way. This would cause the patient to do the abnormal behaviour more often. An example of this is loosing weight and getting a complement for it or getting more attention because you look thinner. Because the patient is getting more attention then they will like it and want to get even thinner to get even more attention, this would cause anorexia.
One of the ways to treat abnormal behaviour using the behavioural model is to use aversion therapy., or unlearning the patient. This done by associating things that they previously enjoyed with unpleasant responses, and thus the undesirable behaviour is discouraged. An example of this would be associating a fury rabbit with a spider, if they have a phobia of spiders, so as the two became paired so that eventually the very spider produces the same fear response as the fury rabbit, and that would have cured the phobia. Another example would be to make something bad happen when they did the abnormal behaviour, e.g. if the patient has a drinking problem, put something in the drink that will make them sick every time they drink it. That way they will associate the drinking the alcohol with being sick and then stop drinking so as they wont be sick.
Behavioural therapies are very successful with certain kinds of disorders, such as phobias or addictions, however, it is not so successful in other disorders such as schizophrenia, which is likely to have a genetic disorder and we would have to result to the medical model. Another bad point about this treatment is that the patient is able to go along with the treatment and say they are treated, and then go home and carry on doing the abnormal behaviour without anyone knowing, such as drinking.
Another model we can use is the cognitive model which is when the patient suffers from mental disorders which causes distorted and rational thinking. Warren and Zgourides (1991) pointed out that many of these thoughts had a “must” quality about them. For example “you must treat me fairly and considerately and not unduly frustrate me, or its awful”.
Cognitive restructuring is used to make the patients thoughts more positive than rational by questioning the patient beliefs. For example, how can tiny spiders hurt you when you are 100 times bigger then it? This will make the patient realise how ridiculous the question is. This will hopefully make the patient realise how rational they are being and no longer be afraid of spiders.
The cognitive model emphasised internal, mental influences and the power of the individual to shape their own thinking, which make this model good for treating some patients. A bad point about this model is that its approach to abnormality is rather limited as genetic factors are ignored and life experiences are paid little attention to.
All of these models are good at treating their own type of mental disorders. Such as schizophrenia can only be treatable using the medical model because this is a physical disorder as part of the brain is damaged. Therefore, when a patient has a medical disorder, I think it would be worth checking that the patient has no physical disorder such as brain damage by doing a cat scan, as the medical model would give a fast diagnosis and have fast results on the patient. If there is no physical problem with the patient, then the medical model has no way to treat the patient, and so the patient has to use other means by using another model. The patient would have to be analysed beforehand to decide what treatment would be best for the patients particular condition, however, this may take a long period of time as the other treatments do not give very fast results and finding the problem would also take some time.
