The medical and sociological models of mental illness are quite different because they consider various factors that lead to diseases and suggest different ways of treatment. Medical model centers around an individual’s psychology or biology and names psychological and biological reasons as the core of decease’s manifestation. Psychological model names the attitudes within a family and society as reasons conducive to the disease’s onset. Thus, it has been noticed that children from troubled families more often exhibited asocial behavior compared to their peers belonging to united family groups. Within sociological theories, asocial behavior is often believed to be provoked by stress and abuse.
The medical model of mental illness presupposes medical treatment of the problem and claims that the illness will progress without treatment. The patients are prescribed medicine to diminish the symptoms of the disease, while psychiatrists claim that many diseases cannot be cured. From the sociological point of view, the best treatment would be the diminishing of provocative factors or situations and the successful integration of a person within society. Mentally ill people are engaged in simple work and activities so that they do not distance themselves from society but become an integral part.
Placing emphasis on biochemical or genetic abnormalities, advocates of a medical model often underplay social causes. Understanding medical illnesses in terms of biology and biochemistry, the doctors often prescribe medication that leads to complete isolation instead of a person’s integration into society. Thus, people are sent to mental hospitals where they may spend a long period without seeing their relatives or friends. At the same time, successful integration presupposes close ties with the family and the society at large.