Bio-Psycho-Social Issues Foundations of Addiction Studies

In recent decades, however, significant advances in understanding and treating LBP have been made. Even Weiner (2008), a spine specialist critical of the BPSM’s weaknesses as a scientific model, has acknowledged that it has been helpful in focusing attention on factors relevant to understanding and treating LBP, and now plays a prominent role in spinal care as a result. The findings that are anomalous for the BMM but consistent with the BPSM are empirical https://thecupertinodigest.com/top-5-advantages-of-staying-in-a-sober-living-house/ data, related to specific influences on specific conditions at specific stages. It is possible that a specific health condition at a particular stage may turn out to be primarily caused by only one kind of factor – biological, psychological, or social – and of course biomedical models of infectious diseases have had stunning successes in exactly this way. Such findings may be called a scientific-explanatory reduction to biological processes.

Overview of the BPSM

The purpose of this study was to fill in a critical gap in the literature to improve population-level prevention strategies by identifying the most salient predictors of opioid misuse and/or use disorder. Some aspects are universal (e.g., the activation of the reward system by drugs of abuse). Yet many other elements are idiosyncratic, such as the intensity of the experience of reward and the functioning of the individual’s mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway in the brain. The biopsychosocial model provides a means of considering the myriad of factors that can contribute to the risk of addiction.

Understanding Exam Expectations

a biopsychosocial approach to substance abuse

For example, the articles discussed in the previous section each in some way referenced the BPSM’s authority in constructing TMD as a “complex disease” (Ohrbach 2021; Ohrbach and Dworkin 2016; Slade et al. 2016). Examples of the appeal-to-authority argument can also be seen throughout this article’s Appendix, including in the discussions of alcoholism, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain, and the numerous ailments listed in the “Other Illnesses” section. The discussion of “gun violence disease” offered in the next section also constitutes a notable use of the appeal-to-authority maneuver. In sum, we can see the question-begging variety of wayward BPSM discourse—and its power—at work in the TMD literature. While “applying the biopsychosocial model” to jaw symptoms, researchers have used question-begging maneuvers to define TMD as a “complex disease” caused by a vast web of biological and psychosocial factors, and then represented this construction as a fact revealed through empirical research.

Health factors

  • First, he describes a “weak” rights ethic, wherein individuals have the right to access good healthcare.
  • In particular, it has the capacity to [1] prematurely represent ambiguous states of suffering as organic problems falling under medicine’s purview, and [2] expand the domain of “disease” in ways that unjustifiably increase the power of medicine and the state.

Some of them had used substances for a couple of days, and others had more extended periods of use. Ethical issues were considered during the recruitment, the interviews, the analysis, and the data interpretation. Conducting in-depth interviews about sensitive subjects Top 5 Advantages of Staying in a Sober Living House requires great awareness and respect for the ‘informants’ emotions and boundaries [12]. The informants were encouraged to contact their therapist, family, or friends if they needed anyone to talk to about stressful thoughts and emotions following the interviews.

a biopsychosocial approach to substance abuse

Just as people who are actively using or abusing substances bond over that common experience to create a drug culture that supports their continued substance use, people in recovery can participate in activities with others who are having similar experiences to build a culture of recovery. However, large international mutual-help organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) do represent the culture of recovery for many individuals. Even within such organizations, though, there is some cultural diversity; regional differences exist, for example, in meeting-related rituals or attitudes toward certain issues (e.g., use of prescribed psychotropic medication, approaches to spirituality). In addition to helping initiate drug use, drug cultures serve as sustaining forces.

The medicalizing power of wayward discourse

  • A sound causal explanation cannot invoke unknown/conjectured factors and all-inclusive categories.
  • BPSM researchers have also explored how social status and stressors can affect health outcomes (Bolton and Gillett 2019; Engel 1977).
  • In this blog post, we’re diving deep into the biopsychosocial model, unraveling its significance in the context of substance abuse, and how it’s pivotal for acing the ASWB exam.
  • It creates an expectation that one can and will learn new things about disease by putting the BPSM to work; yet the BPSM itself offers no tools for generating new knowledge.

Understanding the Impact of Close Relationships

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