“Biopsychosocial” Model in Health Psychology: Towards an Integrated Approach and a Critique of Cultural Conceptions
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Open Journal of Medical Psychology, 2012, 1, 51-62 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojmp.2012.14009 Published Online October 2012 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ojmp) The Status of the “Biopsychosocial” Model in Health Psychology: Towards an Integrated Approach and a Critique of Cultural Conceptions Andrew R. Hatala Department of Psychology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada Email: [email protected] Received July 10, 2012; revised August 20, 2012; accepted September 13, 2012 ABSTRACT The current status of the “Biopsychosocial” Model in health psychology is contested and arguably exists in a stage of infancy. Despite original goals, medical researchers have developed theoretical and empirical integrations across bio-psycho-social domains only to a limited extent. This review article addresses this issue by making connections across research findings in health psychology and related medical fields in order to strengthen the associations across bio-psycho-social domains. In particular, research in sociosomatics, neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomics are in- troduced and explored. The role of “culture” as conceived of within the Biopsychosocial Model is also ambiguous and somewhat problematic. Arthur Klienman’s conceptions of culture as what is at stake for individuals in their local social and moral worlds is adopted to offer a critique of previous perspectives of culture and question its role amidst bio-psycho-social domains. Overall, a multilevel integrative or “holistic” perspective is advanced to strengthen the Bi- opsychosocial Model for use within health psychology and biomedical research. In the end, some clinical implications are discussed. Keywords: Biopsychosocial Model; Health Psychology; Culture; Sociomatics; Psychosocial Genomics 1. Introduction disorders and the pathogenesis of physical ailments such as cardiovascular disease (clinical health psychology) Health psychology emerged as a distinct subfield of [6,7]; effective health intervention, promotion and pre- psychology when the American Psychological Associa- vention of disease and illness in schools, work sites and tion’s (APA) Task Force on Health Research was com- “daily living” (public health psychology) [8,9]; commu- missioned in 1976 to address concerns over increasing nity health justice and social action (community health rates of “preventable” diseases in the United States [1]. psychology) [10-13]; the identification and comparison During a fifty year span between 1920 and 1970, the of major etiological agents of illness in a variety of cul- prevalence of acute infectious diseases like influenza, tures (cultural health psychology) [14,15]; critiques of measles, and tuberculosis declined in the North America mainstream “Western” approaches to and understandings while what have been termed “preventable” conditions of health and illness (critical health psychology) [16-19]; have substantially increased, including cardiovascular psychneuroimmunology [20,21]; and biological models disease, drug and alcohol abuse, and lung cancer [2]. linking the social world and physical health [22-24], to After some success in applying psychological theory and name a few. practice to the promotion of physical health, health psy- Underlying this multifarious collection of research chology formally became Division 38 of the APA in within health psychology is the position that biological 1978. Since then, research in health psychology began to (e.g., genetic predisposition), psychological or behavioral focus on diverse areas, including: illness treatment and (e.g., lifestyles, explanatory styles, health beliefs), and prevention; the role of psychological factors in health social factors (e.g., family relationships, socioeconomic and illness; and improving health care services and poli- status (SES), social support) are all implicated in the cies [3-5]. Today, Division 38 has over 6000 formal various stages of pathogenesis and health etiology. This members, one of the largest in the American association, position is termed the “Biopsychosocial Model” (BPS) and includes several rigorous research programs, involv- and has gradually emerged in consort with related scien- ing: associations among clinically diagnosable mental tific developments in medicine. During the evolution of Copyright © 2012 SciRes. OJMP 52 A. R. HATALA medical science from the Renaissance to the late 19th complex “health risk behaviors”, these authors suggest and early 20th centuries, advances in biology, anatomy researchers must investigate one’s cultural, peer and and physiology eventually crystallized into what is now family environments, one’s propensity to risk taking and referred to as a “biomedical model”. This perspective emotional reactivity, as well as one’s genetic and bio- yielded a shared set of assumptions (i.e., reductionism, logical predispositions [33]. Underestimating any of naturalism, mind-body dualism), which relegated illness these three domains, these authors argue, will limit a and healing primarily to a physiological framework with practitioner or researcher’s ability to predict the likeli- limited attention to social, moral or political dimensions. hood of initiation, rapidity of addiction, and the difficulty It is during this time in the late 1970s that psychiatrist of cessation [33]. George L. Engel at the University of Rochester, as well The status of the BPS model, its use and general ac- as other clinicians and researchers, began to enunciate ceptance within health psychology, however, is not free the limitations of biomedicine and a need for a biopsy- from contestation. Several authors over the years have chosocial perspective1. In 1977 George Engel observed a expressed concerns regarding its limitations, specifically “medical crisis” that he thought “derives from adherence regarding: problems with dichotomizing between biology, to a model of disease no longer adequate for the scien- psychology, and society [27]; problems with its ambigu- tific tasks and social responsibilities of either medicine or ous status as an actual “scientific model” [34-36]; prob- psychiatry” (p. 129), and that medical practitioners and lems of masking an underlying biomedical approach researchers “should take into account the patient, the [37,38]; difficulties with the complexity of outlining lin- social context, the physician’s role and the health care kages or prioritizing among its subsystems [26,39-41]; system” (p. 132) [25]. Engel’s articulation of a “biopsy- and a pervasive individualistic focus [14,18,42,43]. chosocial” perspective was therefore an important at- Despite original goals, researchers in health psychol- tempt to incorporate the patient’s psychological experi- ogy and related medical fields have developed theoretical ences and the social or cultural context into a more com- integrations across biopsychosocial domains only to a prehensive framework for understanding disease, illness limited extent. Consequently, health psychology largely 2 and health . operates from what several authors suggest is a “psycho- Since its introduction, the BPS model has been widely somatic” framework [26,39,40]. In their 2004 review of embraced within medical sciences and health psychology. the BPS model, for example, Suls and Rothman inde- Presently, the American Psychiatric Association and the pendently read and coded all of the studies published in American Board for Psychiatry and Neurology, as well Health Psychology—a leading journal in the field-over a as several medical schools, psychiatry residencies, and 12-month period (November 2001-September 2002). health psychology graduate programs across North They observed that 94% of the studies assessed psycho- America and Europe officially endorse a biopsychosocial logical variables only, with minimal attention given to approach [26-27]. Furthermore, several health psycholo- larger socio-cultural factors [41]. These authors observe gists in particular consider the BPS model to be a guiding that “opportunities to explore the interconnections be- framework for contemporary research and practice [28- tween biological and social factors appear to have been 30]. In the context of chronic pain, for example, a 2004 limited” and conclude that “researchers have taken the study by Gatchel and a 2007 study by Gatchel and col- basic tenets of the biopsychosocial model seriously, but leagues both demonstrate that the connections among more could be done to pursue the linkages among sub- biological changes, psychological status, and the socio- systems” (p. 121) [41]. Thus, a central issue regarding cultural context should all be considered in trying to un- the BPS model and its use within contemporary health derstand an individual’s perception of pain [31,32]. A psychology and related medical fields involves the de- psychiatric intervention or treatment approach, Gatchel gree to which the three domains of the model are ex- further argues, “that focuses on only one of these core plored in an “integrative” framework [44]. sets of factors will be incomplete” (p. 797) [31]. In 2008 The current paper addresses this issue by outlining and Leventhal and colleagues paint a similar picture for ad- making connections across research findings in health dictions, smoking and alcohol use. To understand these psychology in order to strengthen the associations among 1In 2009 Ghaemi observes that the “biopsychosocial” concept was bio-psycho-social domains while at the same time argu- actually coined by Roy Grinker in the 1950s. George Engel, however, ing for a