Work
Biopsychosocial model
Overview
Biopsychosocial models (BPSM) are a class of trans-disciplinary models which look at the interconnection between biology, psychology, and socio-environmental factors. These models examine how such factors interact to play a role in a range of topics, but mainly psychiatry, health and human development. Biopsychosocial approaches have significant overlaps and connections to emergent theories such as the social determinants of health, and models which seek to explain disease by reference to intergenerational, economic, and environmental factors.
The term is generally used to describe a model advocated by George L. Engel in 1977. The model built upon the foundational idea that "illness and health are the result of an interaction between biological, psychological, and social factors". The initial idea behind the model was to express mental distress as a triggered response of a disease that a person is genetically vulnerable to when stressful life events occur. In that sense, it is also known as vulnerability-stress model.
It then became referred to as a generalized model that interpreted similar aspects, and became an alternative to the biomedical and/or psychological models then dominant in many health care systems.
By around 2017, BPSM had become generally accepted; research interest—and use of the models in healthcare policy and by active medical professionals—continued to grow over the decade to 2020.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Related ideas
- Mind–body dualism
- Psychiatry
- Psychology
- Psychoanalysis
- Eclecticism
- René Descartes
- Victorian era
- World War I
- Natural environment
- Heuristic
- Developmental psychology
- Biology
- Anxiety
Place in the tradition
Part of Ubuntu philosophy.