Mental Health & Well Being

The Medical Model Orientation vs The Family Systems Model of Well Being
by O'Steven

The medical model is primarily a linear orientation that looks for an "identified patient", someone to label with "individual problems" that must be diagnosed by an expert and treated with powerful drugs and/or extensive remedies administered by professionals over long periods of time.

The currently practiced mental health medical model in the USA, with a focus on pathology, goes something like this:

1. a symptom emerges in a family member and it can be a combination of physical, mental, emotional dis-ease
2. an assumption is made that something must be wrong with the person exhibiting the symptom
3. a professional is consulted to confirm the symptom (the pathology) with a descriptive diagnoses and money changes hands
4. the symptom bearer is labeled with a pathology and more tests are ordered and more money changes hands
5. the symptom bearer needs a prescription (a treatment plan) for healing and more money changes hands
6. the prescription is spelled out and the "identified patient" is expected to swallow the diagnosis, med's, and treatment in order to get well and more money changes hands
7. the extended family (and surrounding social environment) is relieved of any responsibility in contributing to the symptom and the "identified patient" then passively waits for the cure to take place as they obediently take the treatment and more money changes hands
8. when the symptom are relieved the "identified patient" has been successfully treated and the profitable medical model is poised for the next symptoms should they arise...

The organic family systems model clearly rejects this simplistic, black and white, linear cause and effect, medical model. With a focus on strength the family systems orientation looks for:

1. systemic forces within the extended family that contribute to one of it's members becoming burdened with symptoms - and they can be physical, mental and emotional illnesses
2. complex family dynamics are explored in family therapy sessions and money changes hands
3. the therapist coaches the family members into taking personal responsibility, lowering anxiety, stimulating family resources / resiliency and blames the entire system when one member becomes symptomatic, and more more money changes hands
4. the least mature family members (sometimes a parent, a spouse, a child, a boss) blame others, sabotage the process and focus on "identifying" another who needs fixing, rather than accepting that the entire family needs to function at higher levels of maturity, and the family therapists is fired
5. the family lives with the "identified patient" until the problem becomes too unbearable and the medical model is approached because the family therapy was "going nowhere" and wasting everyone's time and money.