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The Medical Model in Psychopathology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

S. Alexander Weinstock
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Extract

Psychotherapy and psychiatry have long been regarded as proper to the domain of medicine, both by their practitioners and by society at large. According to a statement issued by the American Psychiatric Association in 1958, “Psychotherapy is a form of medical treatment and does not form the basis of a separate profession.” Noyes and Kolb define psychiatry as “that branch of medicine which deals with the genesis, dynamics, manifestations and treatment of such disordered and undesirable functionings of the personality as disturb either the subjective life of the individual or his relations with other persons or with society.” Implicit in such definitions is the belief that the approach used by physicians in treating and investigating physical illnesses can be used by psychologists and psychiatrists in treating and investigating mental disturbances. Like many other psychiatrists and psychologists, we find this approach open to question.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 13 , Issue 52 , December 1965, pp. 14 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © 1965 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

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2 E.g. Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness (New York, 1961), and J. B. Rotter, Social Learning and Clinical Psychology (Englewood Cliffs, 1954).

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24 E.g. the Strong Vocational Interest Test.