Implications of the medical model and its alternatives

The term "medical model" is often used as if it referred to a single, well-understood set of assumptions about psychiatric disorders. Actually, there are at least four different meanings that a person saying "emotional disorders are diseases" might intend to communicate. The models usually suggested as alternatives are addressed to one or another of these medical model implications. A distinction should be maintained between the virtues of these models as conceptual aids and their virtues and weakness as shapers of public opinion and professional practice.