The Medical Model

Psychopathology – Models of Mental Health

In this course, Professor Nick Maguire (University of Southampton) explores models of mental health. In the first lecture, we think about the medical model of mental health and some supporting research. In the second lecture, we think about the mechanisms of pharmacological treatments for psychological illness. In the third lecture, we think about some psychological models of, and treatment for, mental health problems. Next, we think about psychosocial treatments, which incorporate situation and circumstance into methods to tackle mental illness. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about how pharmacological and psychological forms of treatment can complement each other.

The Medical Model

In this lecture, we think about the medical model of mental health, focusing in particular on: (i) Gottesman and colleagues’ 2010 paper investigating the prevalence of mental health problems in children born to psychiatrically ill parents; (ii) Gottesman’s findings, that individuals born to two psychiatrically ill parents had a higher prevalence of mental illness than those born to one, who themselves had a higher prevalence than those born to two parents with no psychiatric illness; (iii) a criticism of Gottesman’s paper being a lack of consideration for the environment within which the children were raised; (iv) the function of twin studies, using monozygotic (identical: 100% shared genes) and dizygotic (non-identical: 50% shared genes) either living in the same or different family environments, to separate genetic factors from environmental ones; (v) the concordance rate discrepancy, indicating inconclusive assessment of the heritability of mental health problems; (vi) the biological view of individual differences explaining mental health problem prevalence, that these differences are rooted in brain structure and neurotransmitter levels/sensitivity.