Question

Discuss the psychological consequences of the biomedical label of "psychosomatic" illness. How did the biomedical model’s view of psychosomatic illness differ from the biopsychosocial model of psychophysiological illness?

Answer 1

Discuss the psychological consequences of the biomedical label of "psychosomatic" illness.

Psychosomatic illnesses are the illnessesthat involve the body and the mind. This states that every physical disease has a psychological aspect and vice versa. This is means that, even if a person is ill physically, they would be affected by it, in the form of feeling depressed or in their perception of the disease they have. Psychosomatic is particularly used, when physical symptoms are caused as a result of mental factors.

These people, are already affected as they hear of the presence of a disease or if there is a physical symptoms in the form of stress or anxiety. It becomes difficult to treat the psychological part of the disease, though physical part could be treated through medications. Moreover, when such a patient is biomedically labelled as being psychosomatic, it affects them heavily.

For most people, the name itself is heavy. The association of the word psycho, as a common perception, means being mad. The idea that such people are labelled as psychosomatic drives them crazy. They considered themselves as sick, now, they consider themselves as severely ill and mentally affected. Since, their emotions are already at an edge with the fact that they have physical problems, adding a labelled mental aspect to it invokes many more emotions, starting from aggression, to disbelief that they could not be having a ‘mental problem’ to being hostile at times. As a result, such patients require to be counselled, so as to cure the condition.

How did the biomedical model’s view of psychosomatic illness differ from the biopsychosocial model of psychophysiological illness?

There is a difference between the biomedical model as well as the bio psychosocial model. The biopsychosocial model states that attributes of the disease are as a result of interactions from biological factors, social factors as well as psychological factors. The biomedical model for psychosomatic illness states that it is only the biological factors or the genes that cause abnormalities. Psychological disorders are disorders that are primarily physical disorders that have mental aspects. For example a person being handicapped, becoming depressed because of their disorder. The psychosomatic disorder is where mental aspects invoke physical conditions. It means that if a person is having chest pain, they would immediately think of the themselves as someone having a weak heart and diseased not that it might be only because of gas.