Point of departure for our version of biopsychosocial stress medicine
Within in human medicine scientists focus “normally” on normative/nomothetic levels, that is, not individuals, and of extremely small parts of biopsychosocial-cultural medicine if they do not try to take a generalistic focus, which indeed is not easy in a reductionistic scientific paradigm which is what dominate most scientific fields.
Within in human medicine clinicians/practitioners focus on a particular individual often called patient, that is, ideographic, the unique subject suffering from something her/himself and/or others in her/his context .
Both positions act out of very limited knowledge, which is extremely complex representing when it concerns our brain an evolution of 450-500 Billion years. NB unfortunately not all of us – scientists, practitioners or laymen realize this!
For many scientists this means a critical rational scientific paradigm (based on Thales, Protagoras, Popper and Aristotle’s axiomatic construction) where we do can identify some elements in this extreme complexity we can rely more on than others. Two examples are the cell metabolism and behaviors/oscillations of the autonomic nervous system which are involved in all lifestyle related medical conditions. This highlights the importance of including parts of systems integrating psychophysiology into theoretical and empirical work.
For many clinicians this means the huge problem of support a person in need of help while resting on both limited knowledge and scientific knowledge which is not usually taking (sometimes) huge variations within and between individuals over situation and time. “Sorry, we need more knowledge” is not what the patient is expected to hear.
To deal with the problems (not everybody agree upon) we need to simplified, which is out of limitations to further limitations where the particular individual´s competence within her/his formal domain represent a variation of not very well observable size – scientists or practitioners.
Work last 30 years with the above “stigma” – both personal, scientific and clinically – based on the references above as well as George Kelly´s “man as a scientist”, General systems theory (von Bertalanfyy, G.E. Schwartz ..) result in what I call biopsychosocial stress medicine trying to integrate some basic features, e.g. cell metabolism and ANS which applied psychophysiology and biofeedback very much in terms of the title of the 1994 poster at the www.aapb.org. This together with further develop Kelly´s approach into “patient as an educated, competent coworker in her/his own rehabilitation.
This along two lines;
- A more scientific formal where HRV-education and certification (see http://ipbm.se/bcia-se/hrv-biofeedback-education-certification/ and
- A more pedagogical based on my dissertation 1986 which provide an educational biopsychosocial manual (toolbox) – very much in terms of www.healthcreators.com – a toolbox keeping its structure but gradually with refined tools and examination instruments.
Reference list will soon be inserted below.
The reason I am not publishing since 1999 is primary that my own work is constantly developed while (also primary) trying to keep the stress Medicine AB company and swedish Center for Stress Medicine above the economical surface. No R6D money in sight last 30 years except to doctoral students in computer science and also, support from our local bank foundation.