Posted by alexandra_k on May 21, 2005, at 23:52:02
The medical model considers mental disorders to be mental deficits. The notion is that normal functioning has been impaired.
Here is one critique of that notion:
'The result of deploying mental deficit terms is thus to enform the recipient that "the problem" is not circumscribed, limited in time and space to a particular domain of his / her life, but that it is fully general. He or she carries the deficit, like a cancer, from one situation to another, and like a birthmark or a fingerprint, as the textbooks say, the deficit will inevitably manifest itself. In effect, once people understand their actions in terms of mental deficits, they are sensitized to the problematic potential in all their activities, the ways in which they are infected or diminished. The weight of "the problem" now expands manyfold; it is an inescapable as their own shadow. The sense of enfeeblement becomes complets'.
Of course, none of that follows if the nature of the deficit is circumscribed... But I do think it is fair to say that clinicians tend not to be particularly helpful with respect to conveying to the client the limitations of their illness.
This does seem to be the result...
Part of the depowerment process...
Yuk.
Gergen, K.J (1990) Theraputic Professions and the Diffusion of Deficit. The Journal of Mind and Behaviour, 11 (3-4), 353-368.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:501020
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050513/msgs/501020.html