Triangulated children's reality: Medical model's concealing effect versus family systems' revealing effect

Kleanthis Neophytou and Martiño Rodríguez‐González

Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 2021, vol. 38, issue 1, 80-92

Abstract: Arguably, the medical model's narrative achieved an iconic mental health status eulogized within our evidence‐based era. Despite Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' atheoretical pretensions, we attempt to shed light and critically challenge its dogmatic mental health presumptions through a family systems perspective. Specifically, our critical study of a fictitious vignette attempts to expose how the medical model's systematic de‐emphasis of familial environments directs clinicians away from the true source of triangulated children's distress, an attention shift that may result in unintentionally perpetuating children's psychological turmoil. Alternatively, we attempt to delineate how the system paradigm may holistically account for children's familial emotional environments, thereby potentially attributing their psychological distress to its true, yet concealed, familial dysfunction. In essence, we argue that the medical model seems to operate within a decontextualized restricted disease‐carrier‐child mind frame, hence potentially ascribing faux diagnoses and false medical treatments to healthy children.

Date: 2021
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