Psychological Injury Model

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There is now an alternate model for what causes mental health problems. Unlike the chemical imbalance theory, it has the backing of thousands of research studies. It can also explain some of the vexing contradictions in psychiatric research. It proposes a brand new way of assessing people and their emotional health issues — one that fundamentally replaces the DSM and other symptom-cluster models. More importantly, it leads to safer and more effective interventions for people who are in serious emotional pain. It places their experiences and their choices about treatment front and center. Instead of pigeon-holing them with a diagnosis, and using power to impose an intervention on them that they often do not want or understand.

The new model is the psychological injury (PI) model. It states that the single largest cause of mental health problems is when a person experiences a psychological injury. These occur when the person is subject to marked neglect, abuse, disrespect, or chaos in their social environment. They can also occur when the person experiences a traumatic event. There are at least four groups of psychological injury, the first being trauma in childhood, the second being highly stressful life events, the third is working for an abusive boss, and the final is trauma in adulthood. The PI model acknowledges that mental health problems can occur from other reasons (i.e. hormonal fluctuations leading to postpartum depression) but maintains that the single largest cause is psychological injury. We will briefly look at each of these four types of psychological injury, before discussing assessment, treatment, and how the PI model resolves contradictions in psychiatric research.

Source:https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/01/psychological-injury-model/