Comparison Essay

Mental Health through the Medical Model and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit Health System Student Name Institution Course Professor Name Date Mental Health through the Medical Model and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit Health System Mental health is a crucial social problem that affects communities all over the world and its residents. There is a significant divergence in the understanding of mental health and its approach across different cultural settings and theoretical schools of thought. The paper combines Huda’s (2021) and Akearok et al.’s (2023) mental health perspectives. The Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit Health System provides health care approaches based on Indigenous knowledge that people receive through community-based holistic services using culturally appropriate solutions. The Medical Model connects its concepts through biomedical and biopsychosocial structures. This paper assesses how the two frameworks define mental health and how their treatment plans are practical in social work interventions. Overview of the Issue Mental health describes the multiple dimensions of emotional human well-being, including psychological and social aspects. Mental health determines how people think alongside their emotions and conduct, directly affecting their stress management abilities, relationship development, and choice-making skills (Hogan, 2019). Population-wide mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and trauma, exist in every sector, yet communities handle such matters through frameworks influenced by social, cultural, and theoretical elements. Western societies endorse the medical approach to mental health by recognizing psychological problems as treatable medical disorders that healthcare providers manage with psychotherapy and medications (Huda, 2021). The model examines biological elements, psychological components, and social influences and mainly concentrates on treating symptoms of individual pathologies. In contrast, through the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) Health System, people receive mental health care based on Indigenous knowledge that addresses the entire individual, their community, and the natural environment. The IQ Health System model recognizes that mental health integrates entirely with physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, community involvement, and the natural environment (Akearok et al., 2023). In addition, IQ Health System maintains cultural traditions by involving communities and integrating Inuit values through storytelling sessions, land-based activities, and Elder participation. The model exists to handle historical trauma with systemic inequalities while facilitating community healing efforts by emphasizing Inuit community resilience. Through the IQ Health System, mental health care provides alternative treatment based on communal harmony and balance instead of evidence-based treatment methods in Western medical approaches. The varying treatment approaches show that cultural history and environmental settings must be elements that healthcare professionals recognize when delivering mental health treatment. The Medical Model Huda (2021) delivers a detailed presentation of the Medical Model, including its use for mental health. The Medical Model is a conceptual framework that analyzes mental health problems by viewing them as medical disabilities, which psychiatry defines as mental disorders. The Medical Model works under biological, psychological, and social assumptions regarding mental health problems to provide medical treatments, including psychotherapy and medication. Furthermore, Huda (2021) explains that psychiatry uses the Medical Model as an accepted framework known as biopsychosocial that demonstrates how biological factors intersect with psychological elements and social components in mental care. The combination of genetic susceptibility, altered brain patterns, and environmental stress contribute to depression as an illness (Huda, 2021). The Medical Model stresses th...