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Biomedical Model Hysteria

Decent Essays
Hysteria and other fashionable illnesses among women, as well as recent expressions of dis-ease have been battlegrounds of conflicting models of mental illness and of professional interests from the late 19th Century through the early 21st Century. The biomedical model describes dis-ease from a biological perspective, which loads on biology as the cause that can be treated by addressing the patient’s biology with medical interventions. This analysis will examine and critique the biomedical model of hysteria. The biomedical model of hysteria is a categorical model, which states that if a woman fails to comply with the conventional code of conduct of being a true woman, there is something in her biology causing her to be unhealthy. The…show more content…
These assumptions relating to the model’s causal statement raise concern regarding the validity of the model, and has served professionalization and social control functions, which overall has implications on how our society understands mental illnesses. The biomedical model is problematic because it asserts that hysteria is syndrome composed of behavioral symptoms caused by a lesion or broken part of the body, therefore reflecting a unit to unit relationship. Making such claims is problematic because physicians were unable to detect any abnormalities in their patients’ bodies that would support their claims. This signifies a validity problem because physicians are making an argument for causality before finding evidence for a unit to unit correspondence. Furthermore, this is problematic because the model’s primary focus is that dis-ease is a result of an underlining physical problem. Failing to collect evidence that supports the model’s distinguishing claim in which hysteria has a biogenic cause suggests that the entire biomedical is based on falsely assumed beliefs. The model’s causal claim is problematic because it claims that hysteria is rooted in biology, suggesting that it is a natural kind. While it seems compelling, critics argue that hysteria, as well as other recent expressions of dis-ease are a cultural kind that have been created by the social demands of the time. Physicians did not discover hysteria, rather they
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