Biomedical Model And Chemical Imbalance Analysis

Reading Assignment 1: Biomedical Model and Chemical Imbalance For the first article, “The Biomedical Model of Mental Disorder: A critical analysis of its validity, utility, and effects on psychotherapy research”, by Brett Deacon, looks at the biomedical model and the effects it has in the psychiatric field. The author writes that the biomedical model, mental disorders originate in the brain, has been the accepted model for cause and treatments of mental disorders for the past three decades. Basically, this model assumes that there is no difference between mental and physical diseases and can be treated with biological means. However, the author points out that the model fails to explain all of the psychological experience. The model also failed to find single causes for disorders, as explained by the scientific definition for disease or new molecular targets. Deacon explains that this has caused pharmaceutical companies to dramatically scale back efforts to created new medications. Historically, the biomedical model helped the field of psychiatry to unify and be taken more seriously. But, as the author elucidates it has done nothing to help the stigma of mental illness, and there is an increase in mental health disorders and severity of the disorders since the biomedical model has been the standard in the U.S. The author explicates that looking solely at the biomedical model psychiatrists and other mental health professions may miss certain diagnosis in patients, and prevent advancements in other treatments. The author argues that open and honest discussion is still needed to help resolve the lack of improvement in mental health. In the second article, “Brains, genes and Chemical Imbalances- How Explanations of Mental Illness Affect Stigma,” the author, Nick Haslam explains that labeling mental health disorders using biogenetic explanations …show more content…
Haslam writes that more and more mental health professions are using terms like chemical imbalance to explain causes in certain disorders, for instance, depression. It is argued that if the public sees the disorders as biologically caused, the negative stigmas that follow mental disorders will diminish. However, the author argues that stigma may actually increase. People believe that when disorders are rooted in biological issues, the people suffering from these disorders are then incurable. The author explained that in one particular study, they found that even the patients, if told they had a chemical imbalanced, became pessimistic about their outcome. He wrote that people who had negative reactions to a chemical imbalance explanation also had the same reaction if the explanation was heredity or brain disease. Haslam argues that we need to be mindful of using biogenetic labels, that they may be doing harm to mental health …show more content…
It was surprising to read that direct to consumer advertising is only legal in the U.S. and New Zealand. The statistic the author used that 50% of patients get the brand name drug they ask for, whether they truly needed it or not, is disturbing. It creates the question as a society, are we over proscribing medications? Is this the reason the U.S. is seeing an uprising in the severity of mental health diseases, because, we may not actually be treating the true underlying causes? The fact that antidepressants are the third most proscribed drug in the United States is disconcerting. Are there really that many people in this country that is depressed? If so, maybe it is time an open and honest discussion is needed on how mental health is treated and