There is an old fable about a king who stuck a large rock in the center of a well-traveled road and then hid in the bushes to see how his citizens reacted to the block. Many came by and grumbled about the rock making their trip more difficult, but they did not remove the stone. Then, serving girl stopped in the road and said, “This rock is going to cause someone to stumble” and promptly removed it. The king saw this and came away from his hiding place to thank the girl for showing concern for her countrymen and for acting to improve her community (“The Stone in the Road”). You may think that the others who came before the serving girl were foolish to not move the rock that bothered them, but are we not we guilty of similar folly? We may see …show more content…
4.7 million Americans had mental illnesses in 2016 (National Institute of Mental Illnesses) and it is of utmost importance that these individuals receive effective treatment to ensure that they can maintain their personal health as well as the health of their community. To improve the health of the United States, the American Psychiatric Association and other mental health professionals are adopting the biopsychosocial (BPS) model that’s aim is to better understand their patients’ health and to determine the treatment options that best fit their …show more content…
I believe that the characteristics of the model must have a set balance across the healthcare field to prohibit practitioners from neglecting some sides of the BPS model. There are some doctors and psychologists who claim that the model ’s weaknesses cannot be fixed, such as it being impractical due to the large amount of information that must be understood by practitioners and the confusion over how to balance the three facets of the model. While there are weaknesses, the benefits of an overall health model could aid mental health practitioners with understanding their patients in ways that they never had before. This benefit must be weighed against the possibility of using an impractical model that may not direct courses of