Biopsychosocial Practice

Throughout the history of mental health practice, conflicting and irreconcilable theories have caused confusion about how disorders form, what they look like, and how they should be assessed and treated. But dramatic scientific advances in recent years have shed light on the scientific processes that underlie and connect body and mind.  As a result, the patchwork theoretical orientations of the past can now be replaced by a unified, science-based, biopsychosocial framework for understanding human development, functioning, and behavior change.

In this book, Timothy Melchert presents a comprehensive biopsychosocial framework for behavioral health care. He lays out the essential scientific and ethical foundations of the framework and then applies it across the treatment process, from intake through outcome assessment. In doing so, Melchert provides a critical basis for the integrated health care systems of the 21st century.

This book is appropriate for all mental health practitioners treating all types of patients, at all levels of functioning, in general as well as specialized practice.

Introduction

I. Conceptual Foundations of the Biopsychosocial Approach to Behavioral Health Care

1. The Foundational Framework of the Biopsychosocial Approach
2. Scientific Foundations of Behavioral Health Care
3. Ethical Foundations of Behavioral Health Care

II. The Public We Serve: Its Biopsychosocial Circumstances

4. Psychological Functioning
5. Sociocultural Factors
6. Physical Health
7. Biopsychosocial Factors Interacting Over Time: A Developmental Perspective

III. The Behavioral Health Care Treatment Process From the Biopsychosocial Perspective

8. Assessment
9. Treatment Planning
10. Treatment
11. Outcomes Assessment

IV. Additional Implications of the Biopsychosocial Approach

12. Public Health Perspective on Behavioral Health
13. Integrating Behavioral Health Care into Primary Health Care
14. The Potential and Promise of Biopsychosocial Behavioral Health Care

References

Index

About the Author

Timothy P. Melchert, PhD, graduated in 1992 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a doctorate in counseling psychology.

He taught at Texas Tech University before moving to Marquette University in 1998. He served for many years at Marquette as training codirector, department chair, and assistant vice provost for graduate programs, and he also served on the State of Wisconsin Psychology Examining Board.

He is a member of multiple journal editorial boards. His previous book, Foundations of Professional Psychology: The End of Theoretical Orientations and the Emergence of the Biopsychosocial Approach, was published in 2011.