>If we did not view psychology, especially abnormal personality, from the
>nosological, allpathic medical model, how would it appear? If we
>sidestepped the "germ" and "warfare" metaphors employed in the traditional
>medical model, how would we approach behavior? How would abnormal behavior
>be characterized if it was not viewed as a "mental illness?" How would
>clinicians interact with clients outside of a "therapy" or "treatment"
>modality? How would we view behavior in terms of "diagnosis?"
The criminal justice system comes to mind. (Some of the diagnoses are
murderer, rapist, thief, etc., and the treatment is usually
punishment.)
I think it helps to look at the problems you're thinking about in
terms of deviance. Whether we define the problem behavior in terms of
illness (for which medical attention is justified) or criminality
(for which harsher systems of control are usually justified) or
something else (for which other forms of control would be justified),
the key is that we accept some behaviors as normal and consider
others as deviant. Once that's behind us, we construct methods of
defining and controlling the deviants... of which a medical, mental
illness model, is one that we've constructed over the years.
When it comes to critiquing the assumptions made by the medical model
and the lack of insight into the sociological forces behind the
medical model, Szasz has pretty much made the case in his Myth of
Mental Illness and subsequent works. None of it completely denies
that illness may underlie behavioral abnormalities (I can't speak for
him, of course, but I doubt Szasz would have any problems with valid
evidence that shows pathology at the base of psychological
disorders). Nor would Szasz argue that we shouldn't be helping
people; whether we give them therapy, or restructure environments, or
redefine normality, or lock people in prisons, etc., all of these
activities are forms of social control, which is an activity that
people in societies will engage in.
Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?
--> Mike O.
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Michael S. Ofsowitz [EMAIL PROTECTED]
University of Maryland - European Division
http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~mofsowit
