Mental Illness and Mental Health Recovery

Running Head: MENTAL ILLNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY 1
Mental Illness and Mental Health Recovery
Name of Student
Name of Institution
Date of Submission

MENTAL ILLNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY 2
Mental Illness and Mental Health Recovery
Mental illness refers to a set of disorders which affect the normal functioning of an
individual’s cognitive processes (Abuse, 2013). The disorder affects someone’s moods,
thinking capacity, and behaviour. There are various classifications of mental illness namely;
depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety (Grob, 2019). Severe mental illness can cause misery
in the daily life of an individual thus making it necessary for caregivers to administer
combinations of medications and psychotherapy. Some of the most common symptoms of
mental illness include; delusions, acute mood swings, drug addiction, detachment from social
circles, and inability to concentrate (Grob, 2019). In this report, a discussion is presented
pertaining to the appropriate health model for treating mental illness. In particular, two
models are discussed namely; mental health recovery model and biomedical model.
According to the mental health recovery paradigm, a complete model of treatment should
have four basic components namely; medication, accommodation, purpose, and social
engagements (Slade et al, 2014). That is, a standard psychiatric care should entail the
restoration of normal biological functioning as well as active psychosocial engagements. On
the other hand, a biomedical model focuses purely on the treatment of biological conditions
while excluding any psychological, social or environmental factors which affect a patient
(Haslam & Kvaale, 2015).
Comparison of the Biomedical Model to the Mental Health Recovery Paradigm
From the descriptions of the two models, there are distinct differences and
similarities which can be derived. To start with, the models are contrasting in the following
ways; firstly, the biomedical model is mainly concerned with relieving patients from diseases,
pain or defects which are interfering with the stability of their health conditions. As such, the
model does not consider the influence of social factors in an individual’s mental health

MENTAL ILLNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH RECOVERY 3
(Lebowitz & Ahn, 2014). On the other hand, a mental health recovery paradigm examines all
the biological, psychological, and socio-environmental factors which affect a patient’s mental
health (Chronister, Chou & Liao, 2013). This model administers treatment while reflecting on
a patient’s behaviour, emotions, thoughts, genetic, and familial issues.
Secondly, the biomedical framework perceives illness as a cellular abnormality
caused by the presence of bacteria or viruses. As such, the treatment approach of this model
focuses on medical procedures which are intended at completely eliminating the causative
agents (Lebowitz & Ahn, 2014). That is, treatment is administered through thorough analysis
of the pathology of the disease before deciding on the appropriate medicine to provide. On
the other hand, a mental health recovery model perceives illness as the resulting effect of an
imbalance between psychological and biological factors (Storm & Edwards, 2013). As such,
this model advocates for a treatment framework which reflects on the diagnosis of
psychological conditions and pathological spectrum.
Another notable difference is that the biomedical model is suited for infectious
diseases due to its attention to details. This framework works by identifying possible causes
of a disease and then narrowing down to the specifics (Mak, Chong & Wong, 2014). As such,
the final treatment reflects professionalism and a specialized focus of care. On the other hand,
a mental health recovery model is characterised by a broad analysis of subjective elements in
a bid to evaluate all the contributing factors to an illness (Slade & Longden, 2015). This
model appears to be complicated in its application and requires the inclusion of some
unmeasurable aspects. As such, it might be difficult to ascertain the medical or scientific
relevance of the mental health recovery paradigm as compared to the biomedical model.
Despite the highlighted differences, these models portray some similarities in terms
of clinical elements; Firstly, it is worth noting that mental health recovery paradigms and