The Biopsychosocial Approach: Past, Present, Future

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding: essential for today's health system
Review: The idea of physicians treating "the whole person" has become a cliché, but the goal is difficult to reach. This book will bring it closer. A pivotal document in medical education, this book will inform and inspire all concerned with the quality of health care. Written to be understood even by legislators and insurance executives, the text keeps technical jargon to a minimum, so the case histories throb with human interest, not "vital functions." Organized in four parts--Clinical Applications, Research, Education and Administration, and History and Philosophy-the book celebrates the work of Dr. George Engel (1914-1999), who formulated the biopsychosocial (BSP) model to challenge the established, more narrow biomedical approach. Engel and his followers show how the psychosocial part can be defined, researched, taught, and learned. In Rochester, New York, where this model evolved, the level of health care is above average while costs are one-third less than the national average.
A distinguished group of physicians and researchers, the thirty contributors spent six years creating a unified document about the still controversial BSP approach. They present their ideas and research findings with both confidence and humility, clearly and powerfully, a real gift to patients and their families, doctors, nurses and policy makers. Philosophers, historians and generalists, too, can confront practical and theoretical aspects of the mind-body problem in contemporary society. This is a work of lasting significance, a guiding light for needed improvements in a health care system that is strong but unbalanced, advanced in technology but lagging in relationships, suffering from serious but curable ailments.