Medical model is the term coined by psychiatrist R. D. Laing in his The Politics of the Family and Other Essays (1971), for the "set of procedures in which all doctors are trained".
The medical model embodies basic assumptions about medicine that drive research and theorizing about physical or psychological difficulties on a basis of causation and remediation.
This gap in information is particularly problematic in clinical situations in which the patient's symptom presentation by itself (particularly in mild forms) is not inherently pathological and may be encountered in individuals for whom a diagnosis of "mental disorder" would be inappropriate.
Especially important was the development of the "germ theory" of disease by European medical researchers such as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the physical causes of a variety of diseases were uncovered, which, in turn, led to the development of effective forms of treatment.
According to the medical model, for treatment (such as drugs), to be effective, it should be directed as closely as possible at correcting the theorized chemical imbalance in the brain of the person with mental illness.