The Biopsychosocial Model

1. Outline the history and development of the medical, social and psycho-social models of disability

Many people these days take their health and body for granted. Imagine losing the ability to walk suddenly due to an accident or a disease. This is exactly what had happened to Nancy Mairs, author of the essay “On Being a Cripple.” She herself had lost her ability to walk normally when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis or MS, a chronic disease that attacks the central nervous system. Her essay talks about her life and dealing with MS. The purpose of the essay is to show how being crippled affects your life and how to stay positive and deal with it.

In the essay “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs reflects her life as a “cripple” because of MS, and her recognition of it. Mairs purpose is to inform individuals on her perspective on being a cripple. She describes how she views herself and how others look at her. Mairs use of word choice, tone, and examples of her life experience provides a better understanding to the goal of this essay.

People with disabilities are not completely gone. They are still there and have a mind of their own. They feel emotions and sometimes have a more complex mind than others. Two authors help enlighten this idea that disabled people are much more than helpless bodies. Both Christy Brown and Jean-Dominique Bauby perfectly illustrate their lives and what it is like to be disabled, and they prove by their stories that they think and feel, and can even develop enough to share what they feel with the world. My Left Foot is about the journey of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy. His entire life he was labeled as a loss cause by doctor after doctor, but his mom never gave up hope. Slowly, he started showing signs of development by random movements responding to certain situations. In the end he ends up being able to communicate with his left foot. The next story, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is about an individual who suffered a stroke at the age of 43, leaving him paralyzed, only able to blink his left eye as communication. He develops his own alphabet inspired by the French language in order to exchange conversations with others. His thoughts in the story jump from the present, him currently disabled, and the past, when he was not. Both memoirs, with very different stories, show the lives of two individuals that are not like others. One who had their disability since birth, and the other who obtained one after a tragic event. In My Left Foot by Christy Brown and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, both authors use characterization to show readers the struggles of disabled people and help them understand that just because they can’t use motions such as hand gestures to express how they feel, doesn’t mean that they don’t think and feel.

The Medical Model regards disability as an individual problem. It promotes a traditional view of disability, that it is something to be ‘cured’, even though many conditions have no cure. The problem is seen as the disabled person and their impairment, not society, and the solution is seen as adapting the disabled person to fit the non-disabled world, often through medical intervention. Control resides firmly with professionals; choices for the individual are limited to the options provided and approved by the 'helping' expert.

The Biopsychosocial model (BPS) was established in the early 1970s as a replacement for the biomedical approach created by George Engel (1977). He had argued against the reductionist biomedical model of disease for not considering the behavioural, psychological and social dimensions in the model (Jull, 2017). Wade and Halligan, (2016) had established that biomedical remains as the dominant healthcare approach. The aim of BPS is to integrate the biological factors with psychological and environmental factors, Engel (1977) suggested that the biopsychosocial model of illness has a significant role in the functioning of humans in terms of disease or illness and can make medicine more scientific and should be adopted into psychiatry research (Adler, 2009). Davies and Roache, (2017) established that the model was exceedingly determined, recommending new details for practices as well as a non-reductive advocate for mental illness.

Rigid beliefs and a lack of early opposition leads a person to become unaccepting of different ideology. By acknowledging divergent views, people become more tolerant towards the various ways something can be done. People often disregard or ignore opposition for fear of altering their unwavering beliefs. As a person stops questioning their beliefs they became less likely to tolerate others with conflicting ideas. Early knowledge of diverse ways leads to a higher probability in tolerance, and keeps one from narrow mindedness. Southern prejudice shows conformity to a system of beliefs for fear of change or different ways. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout abandons typical Southern prejudice due to her tolerance, a trait fostered by

The amount of people who live with disabilities is a controversial number. Depending on what law and diagnostic tools used, a person may have a visible disability, or one that may lie beneath the surface of his or her appearance. Some people believe that the term “disability” is merely a label use to hold back, or prescribe helplessness. Meanwhile, individuals who have been properly diagnosed with disabilities struggle to maintain respect and acceptance every day. In plain language, there is a lot of misunderstanding between people with disabilities and those without. It is firstly important to get everyone on the same page regarding the definition of disability.

“The medical model is presented as viewing disability as a problem of the person, directly caused by disease, trauma, or other health condition which therefore requires sustained medical care provided in the form of individual treatment by professionals. In the medical model, management of the disability is aimed at a "cure," or the individual's adjustment and behavioral change that would lead to an "almost-cure" or effective cure.” (Langtree, 2012)

Disability is a topic viewed differently by each set of eyes. To truly understand a disability, one must live through it or frequently view the lives of another, struggling with an infirmity. Living with a disability may be hard, but it does not mean it is not worth living. Nancy Mairs, author of the essay “On Being a Cripple,” has written about her views and experiences, explaining to the public the truth behind being a “cripple,” and proving that disease does not control you. Explained in the paper, able-bodied people make assumptions to how low quality life must be, living with a disease and that these individuals are constantly unhappy however

“A good leader inspires others with confidence in him; a great leader inspires others with confidence in themselves” (unknown). Black Hawk’s actions throughout his life time proved his ability to be a great leader. He involved himself in many great feats that would attract many followers to him for instance, becoming a warrior at the early age of fifteen and beyond that being successful in heading up many other attack expeditions at a very young age. Playing a large role in two major wars also helped Black Hawk to become a leader.

The dominant model of disability for the majority of the 20th century was the medical model. The medical model’s emphasis is on impairment; this is the cause of the disadvantage disabled individuals face and therefore the site of interventions (Crow, 1996). It is based in the biomedical and clinical. It views disability as a personal tragedy, an idea which is often implicit in work around disability based on the medical model. (Oliver, 1990).

There were many civilizations that were flourishing pre-/post the middle ages. One of the most recognized ones is the society of the Ancient Romans. For the purpose of a social-political example, the Ancient Romans derived from many different cultures. According to the textbook, the Etruscans were the first people known to have been living in Italy (Benton et al 129). In addition, from these small empires and the assimilation of many cultures, came the Roman Republic and from that, the influences in the Roman Empire. Under those circumstances, there are various details that led to the Roman Republic and its height of the Empire. According to the textbook, there were two classes: the patricians and the plebeians; the patricians are described as “the land-owning aristocrats who served as priests and magistrates etc.” and were the

The Peter is disabled as he is not capable of leading normal life and required having assistance of others. Illness: It is the period during which

“Don’t treat the disease, treat the patient” [9]. The concept of health has seemed to become complex in definition over the centuries as science improves. “Health is a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.”-World Health Definition of Health (1948) [9]