Knowra Biopsychosocial model Biopsychosocial model The biopsychosocial model explains health and illness through interacting biological, psychological, and social factors. It contrasts with explanations that treat disease as purely biological.
Biological factors : Physical processes, structures, and conditions that influence an organism’s health. Genes, physiology, and disease processes form the model’s biological domain.
Stress (biology) : The body’s coordinated response to demands or threats, involving neural, hormonal, and immune activity. Social pressures and psychological appraisals can trigger physiological stress responses.
George L. Engel : An American psychiatrist who formulated the biopsychosocial model of illness and medical care. Engel argued that clinical medicine needed a framework beyond biological reductionism.
Patient-centered care : Care that responds to patients’ individual values, needs, and preferences. Considering social context and personal experience makes care responsive to the whole person.
Biological reductionism : The view that complex phenomena can be explained primarily by biological processes. The model resists reducing illness to biological causes alone.
Psychological factors : Mental processes and patterns, including emotion, cognition, behavior, and personality. Thoughts, feelings, and behavior shape how illness develops and is experienced.
Allostatic load : The cumulative physiological wear caused by repeated or prolonged adaptation to stress. It shows how persistent social and psychological strain can become bodily disease risk.
The need for a new medical model : The problem of explaining illness when biological findings alone do not account for suffering or care needs. Engel introduced the model to address gaps in biomedical explanations and clinical practice.
Case formulation : A structured explanation of a person’s difficulties that guides psychological treatment. Formulation organizes interacting causes into an individualized account of illness.
Biopsychosocial-spiritual model : An extension of the biopsychosocial framework that includes spiritual or existential dimensions of health. This extension adds a domain the original three-part framework does not explicitly name.
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