Why am I so anxious..? (Part 1)
Introduction to the Biopsychosocial Model
”Psychology isn’t rocket science, it’s far more complicated”
I have heard it said that psychology isn’t rocket science, it’s actually far more complicated. Indeed, we can launch rockets into space and land on the moon, yet we often continue to have trouble understanding why we feel and behave the way that we do.
This blog series aims to provide an overview of how we might begin to understand mental health issues, and what a journey of healing might look like.
The Biopsychosocial Model
Every culture and generation has had their own way of understanding mental distress, ranging from spirits and demons, to phrenology, which sought to link personality traits to the shape of one’s skull. These days, psychologists make sense of mental distress using what is called the ‘Biopsychosocial model’.
‘Bio’: Refers to biological processes within our bodies and brains, including the role of brain structure, neurotransmitters and hormones.
‘Psycho’: Refers to a person’s internal mental experiences, including thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and how they see the world
‘Social’: Refers to external influences, which may include the role of society, culture, family, school and work.
Long have scientists and psychologists from each of these domains argued about which has the biggest impact on our personalities, behaviour and mental health. The biopsychosocial model allows us to combine each of these perspectives in order to develop a nuanced and holistic understanding of what might be happening for someone who is experiencing mental distress. Further, a biopsychosocial model gives us three different places where we can make changes in order to bring about a greater sense of wellbeing.
In this blog series, I will be going through each of the three elements of the biopsychosocial model, in terms of what they contribute to both understanding and treating mental health issues.
The Good News…
For now though, there is some good news to impart. We can often attribute mental struggles to some type of personal deficiency. Namely, ‘I am anxious because I am weak’, ‘I am depressed because I’m worthless’, ‘I am an alcoholic because I am a bad person’. These beliefs about our struggles are obviously unhelpful and self-perpetuating, but more than that, they are actually just simply untrue. The simplicity of these negative beliefs alone suggests that they must be missing a big part of the picture. In the words of H.L Mencken, “for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” So the good news is that there is wisdom in your distress, even if it has past it’s expiry date. Your struggles come not simply from you being a flawed person, but as a natural response to a range of bio, psycho and social factors, from both past and present.
Good therapy vs Not-so-good therapy
I will have more to say about what in my view constitutes good therapy at some stage. For now, not-so-good therapy, which places focus on learning new skills like breathing exercises, thought challenging, and mindfulness, whilst usually well-intentioned and certainly helpful at times, runs the risk of failing to address underlying issues and can also surreptitiously reinforce the idea that we are struggling because we are unskilled and even that we are solely to blame for our own struggles.
Good therapy in my view fundamentally involves incorporating biopsychosocial factors, and putting one’s life story together so that one understands their struggles on a deep level. The story which one develops through therapy, like any good book, movie or tv show, shouldn’t be just a recounting of events, but rather a rich portrayal of experiences, meanings, relationships and feelings. One word psychologists may use to describe this story is a ‘formulation. As we form this layered narrative and begin to understand and experience ourselves in new ways, we may be presented with an opportunity for a positive plot twist in our lives, associated with new-found wholeness, humanity, freedom and contentment.
Stay tuned for the next Blog post in the series, which will focus on the Biological aspects of mental health…
