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The Rise and Fall of the Biopsychosocial Model: Reconciling Art and Science in Psychiatry
2010 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine This is the first book-length historical critique of psychiatry’s mainstream ideology, the biopsychosocial (BPS) model. Developed in the twentieth century as an outgrowth of psychosomatic medicine, the biopsychosocial model is seen as an antidote to the constraints of the medical model of psychiatry. Nassir Ghaemi details the origins and evolution of the BPS model and explains how, where, and why it fails to live up to its promises. He analyzes the works of its founders, George Engel and Roy Grinker Sr., traces its rise in acceptance, and discusses its relation to the thought of William Osler and Karl Jaspers. In assessing the biopsychosocial model, Ghaemi provides a philosophically grounded evaluation of the concept of mental illness and the relation between evidence-based medicine and psychiatry. He argues that psychiatry's conceptual core is eclecticism, which in the face of too much freedom paradoxically leads many of its adherents to enact their own dogmas. Throughout, he makes the case for a new paradigm of medical humanism and method-based psychiatry that is consistent with modern science while incorporating humanistic aspects of the art of medicine. Ghaemi shows how the historical role of the BPS model as a reaction to biomedical reductionism is coming to an end and urges colleagues in the field to embrace other, less-eclectic perspectives.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published November 17, 2009
102 people want to read
About the author
S. Nassir Ghaemi
17 books77 followersNassir Ghaemi MD MPH is an academic psychiatrist specializing in mood illnesses, depression and bipolar illness, and Editor of a monthly newsletter, The Psychiatry Letter (www.psychiatryletter.org).
He is Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, where he directs the Mood Disorders Program. He is a also a Clinical Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and teaches at the Cambridge Health Alliance.
In the past, he trained and worked mostly in the Boston area, mainly in Harvard-affiliated hospitals (McLean Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Cambridge Hospital). He has also worked at George Washington University, and Emory University. His medical degree is from the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University.
His clinical work and research has focused on depression and manic-depressive illness. In this work, he has published over 200 scientific articles, over 50 scientific book chapters, and he has written or edited over half a dozen books. He is an Associate Editor of Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
After his medical training, he obtained an MA in philosophy from Tufts University in 2001, and a MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2004.
Born in Tehran, Iran, he immigrated to the US at the age of 5 with his family and was raised in McLean, Virginia by his father Kamal Ghaemi MD, a neurosurgeon and neurologist, and his mother Guity Kamali Ghaemi, an art historian. A graduate of McLean High School (1984), he received a BA in history from George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia, 1986).
He is an active writer, and besides his books, newsletter, and scientific articles, he writes a column for Medscape.
He is Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, where he directs the Mood Disorders Program. He is a also a Clinical Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and teaches at the Cambridge Health Alliance.
In the past, he trained and worked mostly in the Boston area, mainly in Harvard-affiliated hospitals (McLean Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Cambridge Hospital). He has also worked at George Washington University, and Emory University. His medical degree is from the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University.
His clinical work and research has focused on depression and manic-depressive illness. In this work, he has published over 200 scientific articles, over 50 scientific book chapters, and he has written or edited over half a dozen books. He is an Associate Editor of Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
After his medical training, he obtained an MA in philosophy from Tufts University in 2001, and a MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2004.
Born in Tehran, Iran, he immigrated to the US at the age of 5 with his family and was raised in McLean, Virginia by his father Kamal Ghaemi MD, a neurosurgeon and neurologist, and his mother Guity Kamali Ghaemi, an art historian. A graduate of McLean High School (1984), he received a BA in history from George Mason University (Fairfax, Virginia, 1986).
He is an active writer, and besides his books, newsletter, and scientific articles, he writes a column for Medscape.
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January 22, 2018
An ill-informed book which presents an impoverished model of psychiatric theory and clinical practice. Useful mainly as an exemplar of the intellectual vacuum that occurs as a result of the lack of training in psychology and social science in U.S. psychiatry.
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