Box 2.

Assumptions of Meyer's biopsychological model²²

• The boundary between mentally well and mentally ill people is fluid because normal people can become ill if exposed to sufficiently severe trauma

• Mental illness is conceived along a continuum of severity from neurosis through borderline conditions to psychosis

• An untoward mixture of noxious environment and psychic conflict causes mental illness

• The mechanisms by which mental illness emerges in an individual are psychologically mediated

• Postmodernity provides doctors with an opportunity to redefine their roles and responsibilities