The Biomedical Approach
Sociology: AQA A Level, topic 5.4.1
The Biomedical Approach to Mental Illness
The biological approach sees mental illness as a biologically based disease with observable symptoms that can be diagnosed.
Definition
- Mental illness is defined as ‘a state of mind that affects the person’s thinking, perceiving emotions or judgement to the extent that she or he requires care or medical treatment in her or his interests or in the interests of other persons’.
The biomedical model
- The biological approach favours treatment using drugs, therapy or surgical treatments.
- Treatments are often carried out in clinical settings such as psychiatric hospitals or specialist wards within mainstream hospitals.
- Mental illness is seen as affecting abnormal individuals rather than whole groups of people.
Criticisms of the biomedical model
- It has been claimed that biomedical model ignores or downplays the social pattern of mental illness, for example, how it affects groups of people such as the working class, women and minority groups.
- Social models argue that mental illness is primarily social and not biological.
- Mental illness can be seen purely as a social construct, with no universal definition that varies between cultures.