Models for Explaining Mental Health

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about models for explaining mental health, focusing in particular on: (i) the biological approach to explaining mental health, which proposes that problems with mental health are based in an imbalance of hormones or neurotransmitters, as well as genetic inheritance and faulty brain structures; (ii) limitations of the biological approach being that it is reductionist and deterministic; (iii) strengths of the biological approach being it provides clear predictions in research and links between illness and treatment; (iv) the behaviourist approach to explaining mental health, which proposes that problems with mental health are a result of faulty learning; (v) limitations of the behaviourist approach being that it is both reductionist and deterministic; (vi) the social learning approach to explaining mental health, which proposes that problems with mental health are due to dysfunctional role models; (vii) Scheff’s 1966 article, which outlined the self-fulfilling prophecy evoked by diagnostic labelling; (viii) evaluating the social learning approach to explaining mental health by considering it to be reductionist and to employ soft determinism; (ix) the psychodynamic approach to explaining mental health, which proposes that mental health problems are due to past trauma, unresolved conflicts and overused defence mechanisms; (x) evaluating the psychodynamic approach to explaining mental health by considering it to be both reductionist and deterministic; (xi) the cognitive approach to explaining mental health, which proposes that mental health problems are derived from faulty thinking; (xii) evaluating the cognitive approach to explaining mental health, by considering it to be both partially reductionist and partially deterministic; (xiii) the humanistic approach to explaining mental health, which proposes that mental health problems are due to incongruence between the self and the idea self; (xiv) evaluating the humanistic approach to explaining mental health, by considering it to be holistic and non-determinist.

About the lecturer

Dr Cody Porter is a senior lecturer in social psychology in the department of Health and Social Sciences at the University of the West of England. Dr Porter’s research interests are in information elicitation, lie detection and offending behaviour. Some of Dr Porter’s recent publications include ‘Implementing converged security risk management: Drivers, barriers, and facilitators’ (in press) and ‘Applying the asymmetric information management technique to insurance claims’ (2022).