Medical Model v. Developmental Model

Medical Model v. Developmental Model

Biological, Developmental, and Holistic Models of Treatment

The modern biological approach to human behavior originated in the 19th century "with the discovery that brain damage could result in thought and mood disturbances and bizarre behavior" ("The Biological Model," 2004, the Science Museum: Making the Modern World Today). Within the history contemporary medicine, "each physical illness is generally characterized by a particular set of symptoms. A doctor attempting to help a sick patient will typically seek to reach a diagnosis by comparing the patient's particular symptoms to the characteristics of various illnesses" ("The biological model," 2004, the Science Museum: Making the Modern World Today).

But the treatment and diagnosis of ailments remains more difficult to diagnose and to treat.

For example, "substance abuse treatment may be based on one of several traditional approaches: the Medical Model which focuses on the recognition of addiction as a bio/psycho/social disease," thus "the need for life-long abstinence, and the use of an ongoing recovery program to maintain abstinence," versus "the Social Model which stresses "the need for self-help recovery groups to maintain sobriety," although "many programs use a combination of some aspects of the various models in order to facilitate the most appropriate treatment for the individual and to give patients options," in a holistic fashion. ("Chapter 2: Understanding Addiction, Substance Abuse Treatment, and Recovery Blending Perspectives and Building Common Ground," 1999,a Report to Congress on Substance Abuse and Child Protection)

The largest single study of substance abuse program treatment outcomes undertaken to date found that in the "the final set of significant program effects" found that "on-site primary medical care improves patients' addiction-related outcomes...The availability of on-site medical care is significantly related to longer time in treatment, which in turn promotes abstinence and reduced drug use." (Henrich & Fournier 2005: 10) "Cross-modality substance abuse treatment practices," that included "treatment retention, counseling intensity, self-help group participation, and the availability and use of medical services," were associated with treatment effectiveness (Henrich & Fourier, 2005: 1). But the authors of the study acknowledged that the difficulty of empircally proving the effectiveness of non-biologically rooted factors. There is a difficulty of isolating the improving factors with a 'placebo' unlike a drug treatment for a psychotropic ailment. Analyzing holistic programs that deploy a cross-sectional approach are even more difficult to ascertain, in terms of isolating the causal factors that cause an improved response to treatment.