Four Noble Truths and The Medical Model
Broadly speaking, differences between traditional Buddhism and contemporary institutionalized Western psychology can be conceived in terms used in the following table.
| Buddhism (Four Noble Truths) | Western psychology | |
| problem | suffering (dukkha) | significant distress, disability, pain, loss of freedom, suicidality |
| etiology | craving (tanha), ignorance (avijja) | conditioning, genetics, biology, childhood development, socialization |
| goal | Enlightenment (bodhi), Nirvana | normal or higher functioning, lack of initial symptoms |
| treatment | Noble Eightfold Path | counseling, therapy, medication, systems advocacy |
Read more about this topic: Buddhism And Psychology
Famous quotes containing the words medical model, noble, truths, medical and/or model:
“The entire construct of the “medical model” of “mental illness”Mwhat is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“One great Society alone on Earth,
The noble Living, and the noble Dead.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“One fellow I was dating in medical school ... was a veterinarian and he wanted to get married. I said, but you’re going to be moving to Minneapolis, and he said, oh, you can quit and I’ll take care of you. I said, “Go.””
—Sylvia Beckman (b. c. 1931)
“Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it ... it’s just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)