On 3 Dec 2004 at 20:25, Rick Froman wrote:
>
> You won't see people in medicine using the term "medical model" to
> refer to what they do. It would be like hydrologists talking about
> using the hydraulic model. The medical model is a model for
> psychologists in that it is a metaphor or a model for what they do.
> Which is also why it isn't necessary to refer to a "quasi-medical
> model". The word "model" carries the meaning of being a metaphor. The
> extent to which the metaphor is effective or useful can be argued but
> it is only a model.
Well, possibly the term "model" is inappropriate for what's being
discussed, although that's the designation it's always given. What
we're talking about are the procedures by which the practitioners of
a discipline operate. For what I'm calling the true medical model,
you observe symptoms to arrive at a diagnosis of a real underlying
(structural) cause. For what I'm calling the quasi-medical model, you
observe symptoms to arrive at a diagnosis of a metaphoric,
hypothetical, imaginary ("psychic") cause.
Perhaps doctors don't need to distinguish between them because they
only use one of these approaches (not really true, as many dabble in
psychodynamic explanation). But in psychology some of us use one of
these approaches and others, the other. For example, a psychologist
using the true medical model might propose that schizophrenia is
caused by a gene on chromosome 7. Another psychologist using the
quasi-medical model might propose that schizophrenia is caused by a
defective personality resulting from maternal rejection.
I think it's important to keep these approaches separate. I accept
the use of the medical model in psychology, but not the quasi-
medical. There's also a third model, the behavioral, which says that
behavioral symptoms are not merely signs of an underlying cause but
are the problem itself. I also accept this approach, which is
compatible with the use of the true medical model.
Stephen
___________________________________________________
Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7
Canada
Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at
http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips
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