Implications of the medical model and its alternatives.
The term "medical model" is often used as if it referred to a single, well-understood set of assumptions about psychiatric disorders. Actually, there are at least four different meanings that a person saying "emotional disorders are diseases" might intend to communicate. The models usually suggested as alternatives are addressed to one or another of these medical model implications. A distinction should be maintained between the virtues of these models as conceptual aids and their virtues and weakness as shapers of public opinion and professional practice.
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003156:Community Mental Health Services; D003417:Criminal Psychology; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D004194:Disease / Q000145:classification; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000145:classification / Q000209:etiology; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009014:Morals; D011570:Psychiatry; D011613:Psychotherapy; D011639:Public Opinion