The Strengths and Limitations of the Biological Model of Abnormality

The Strengths and Limitations of the Biological Model of Abnormality

This model uses physical illness as a model for psychological

disorder, suggesting that like physical illness, mental illness has an

underlying bodily cause. It proposes that genetic, organic or chemical

disorders cause metal illnesses which give rise to behavioural and

psychological problems. Thus, abnormality has physical causes such as

brain dysfunction (neurological), biochemical imbalances, infections

or genetics and so can only be cured through medical treatments.

Therefore it implies that abnormality results from properly

functioning physiology, a properly functioning nervous system and no

genetic predispositions to inherit mental disorders. It is the

dominant model, as medical practitioners naturally favour it; but it

has been expanded upon by the diathesis-stress model, which seeks

abnormality as an interaction of genetic predisposition and the

envi...