BEYOND THE DISEASE MODEL OF MENTAL DISORDERS pot

[...]... viewpoint, what The "American Way" of Understanding Mental Disorders 19 is inherited is not disease, but disease susceptibility; genes confer a predisposition or diathesis, not a disease We return to this theme in some detail in Chapter 4 Throughout these present-day popular messages, the theme being advanced is that all mental illness is a biologically based disease of the brain, or that mental disorder... understanding of whether there are necessary or sufficient causes, although this remains the goal of much current research However, we do have a good understanding of many of the contributory Understanding Mental Disorders 11 causes for most forms of psychopathology" (Carson, Butcher, & Mineka, 1996, p 64) I will argue that the doctrine of monocausation needs desperately to be abandoned Within the field of mental. .. perpetuation of the biomedical model (or for that matter, any other monocausal model) can only deflect the field of psychopathology away from valid understandings of mental disorders It will remain for subsequent chapters to review the scientific evidence promoting the multicausal biopsychosocial perspective that needs to dominate and guide the next century of activity within the science of psychopathology... particular theory or perspective on mental disorders Physiological, biochemical, psychoanalytic, behavioral, and other theories attempt to explain the causes and specify the underlying mechanisms of various mental disorders Any serious movement toward definitional resolution would require preliminary progress toward integration of these various theoretical explanations Whatever DSM mental disorders are, they... Torrey, 1997) The major task of this book is a detailed examination of the evidence for this currently heralded biomedical or disease model of mental disorders In pursuing this task, the intent is not to malign biologicalmedical approaches, but to help bring them up to state -of -the- science form, in which they can be expanded to include powerful psychological and sociocultural factors Other psychopathology... offered distinctive perspectives on the nature of mental disorders Various scientists of psychopathology have asserted that maladjusted h u m a n behavior is the result of abnormal brain physiology; of painful life events (stressors); of faulty behavioral conditioning; of problems in cognition and information processing; of cycles of self-defeating interpersonal behaviors; of societal oppression; of. .. biomedical theme asserts that mental disease is a genetic disease, and that mental disorders are genetically transmitted Without qualification or elaboration, these statements suggest that the ultimate culprit in the case of mental disorders is faulty genes transmitted from parents to their children The assertion is that scientific evidence from familial, twin, and adoption studies leads to the inescapable... thinking about mental disorders if we substitute the notion of the cause for the notion of a cause To speak of the cause is to suggest that there is only one; this has been called the doctrine of "monocausation" (King, 1982, p 204) In practice, causal investigation rarely yields the unique or perfectly predictable connection between two phenomena If this book aims to accomplish anything, it is the unqualified... present It could also be the case that each is necessary, but neither is sufficient An excellent physical medicine example of a necessary but not sufficient cause is the case of tuberculosis Exposure of an individual to the tubercle bacillus is a necessary but not sufficient cause to guarantee onset of the disease Expression of the dormant bacillus requires presence of one or more other mediating factors... emphasizing the multicausal biopsychosocial perspective This book also xiv Preface examines the evidence that invalidates the monocausal environmental and cultural models so prominent within these disciplines My major focus, however, is on refutation of the biomedical (disease) model This model permeates much of present-day psychiatry and present-day American society Unquestionably, the "brain disease" . w0 h0" alt="" BEYOND THE DISEASE MODEL OF MENTAL DISORDERS This page intentionally left blank BEYOND THE DISEASE MODEL OF MENTAL DISORDERS Donald . Understanding Mental Disorders: The Biomedical Model 15 Popular Adoption of the Biomedical Model 17 Psychiatric Endorsements of the Biomedical Model 20 The