PSYC 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15.1: Medical Model
14 Dec 2016
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PSYC 15.1
Defining and Classifying Psychological Disorders
• Explanations for mental illness shifted from demon possession to physical illness
• Asylum: residential facilities for the mentally ill
• Medical model: sees psychological conditions through the same lens as Western medicine tends to see
physical conditions – as sets of symptoms, causes, and outcomes, with treatments aimed at changing
physiological processes in order to alleviate symptoms
o Psychological disorders (depression, autism) can be approached in the same manner as
conventional medicine would approach diabetes or cancer
Defining Abnormal Behaviour
• Maladaptive: whether it causes distress to oneself or others, impairs day-to-day functioning, or increases
the risk of injury or hard to oneself or others
Psychology’s Puzzle: How to Diagnose Psychological Disorders
• DSM: a standardizes manual to aid in the diagnosis of disorders
• Purpose: to provide mental health workers with a reliable method for diagnosing mental illness and to
ensure consistency across different institutions and hospitals
• Rooted in the psychobiological view
• DSM has 3 important pieces of information
o A set of symptoms and number of symptoms that must be met to have this disorder, the etiology
(causes) of the symptoms, and a prognosis or predication of how these symptoms will persist or
change over time
The Mental Disorder Defence (AKA The Insanity Defence)
• Claims that the defendant was in such an extreme, abnormal state of mind when committing the crime that
he/she could not discern that the actions were legally or morally wrong
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