Knowing, valuing, acting: clues to revising the biopsychosocial model

While remaining influential in education and research in psychiatry and medicine, the biopsychosocial (BPS) model has been criticized for ambiguity in conceptualizing everyday clinical problems. As a multilevel general systems approach, it leaves obscure which system level (cellular, person, family, community, and so on) is most clinically important at any point in time. As a model for psychiatry and medicine, it does not address the practical and moral dimensions of clinical work. This report reviews criticisms and concerns about the BPS model. These criticisms are used to begin a more practicable revision of the model.