A “psychological model” of abnormality could be the cognitive model. Cognitive models are based on the assumption that conscious thought mediates an individual’s emotional state or behaviour in response to a stimulus. The cognitive model suggests that people may even create their own problems through interpretation. The mediating process in which an individual will go through in deciding how they will cope with a stimulus is the key point in the cognitive model. It’s the way an individual thinks, how they perceive things and their own personal self-evaluations. The individual’s schema is what decides their response.
A cognitive therapist would look at curing their patient through learning exercises. They must become aware of their thoughts, be aware of what stimulus’s produce what responses, to look at the reasoning behind their automatic thoughts and also to learn to identify and alter the beliefs that pre-dispose them to distort their experiences, (Beck and Weishaar 1989).
These two models discussed differ hugely in content and suggestions. The first key difference is the point of the abnormal behaviour being either organic or non-organic. As mentioned above, the medical model states that environmental factors with reference to abnormal behaviour have very little influence. The abnormal behaviour therefore is a result of an underlying physical condition such as damage to the brain. In stating this, the treatment given is aimed at controlling the underlying disease by changing the individual’s biochemistry. This approach does not account for the occasions in which no biological explanation can be found. Although strong biological evidence can be found for mental disorders such as bipolar and unipolar depression and schizophrenia there is little evidence to show that eating disorders and phobia’s have a biological cause. They show more of a social cause and so this suggests that many disorders are probably a mix of predisposition and environment. The environment is a huge factor with reference to any mental disorder. Genetically we inherit a predisposition to develop the illness; it is environmental forces that activate these predispositions.
Evidence to support that the environment can change individuals biochemistry could be that stress-produced fear and anger cause the secretion of adrenalin and noradrenalin.
A psychological model such as the cognitive model could also be criticised as being to computer like. Human behaviour is more than just thought and beliefs. The biological approach, and indeed other psychological models such as the humanistic approach, objects the mechanistic manner by which human beings are reduced to. The cognitive model would suggest that our thought cause the disturbances whereas it may indeed by the disturbances causing our thoughts.
There is also a big difference in the treatments given by each therapist. The medical model would refer the patient to drugs and somatic intervention. The problem here being the diagnosis, if this section is not correct, the individual may be prescribed the wrong treatment and may even end up worse off than when they first consulted their doctor. A psychological approach to abnormal behaviour will look a lot deeper into the individual and not merely at the symptoms in which they are showing. Their treatment makes the therapist almost like a teacher, an authoritive figure. Critics suggest that with this in mind, the patient becomes intimidated against the therapists power again leading to a mis-identification of the patients disorder.
