Book Review |
Biopsychosocial Medicine: An Integrated Approach to Understanding Illness. Peter White. Published by Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 01985303X. Price: £29.95. 242 pp.
|
The calibre of the speakers is undoubtedly high, with Drossman, Marmot, Wessely, Steptoe, Waddell and Davey Smith among others doing what they do best—elegantly presenting compelling evidence to support their cases, while causing a little bit of mischief too. This mercurial style is pleasurable—with speakers deliberately changing between praising the BPS model in one scenario, then decrying it in the next. Readers will question their own understanding of the BPS model; such self-reflection from academic texts is rare but delightful when it happens.
This is a collection of proposals concerning post-modern theories of ill-health, supported by good evidence, and the reader who wishes to know more about the strengths and weaknesses of the BPS explanation of complex health relationships will find this book truly enjoyable and enlightening. Wessely's foreword uses the local geography around Denmark Hill, with the Maudsley Hospital and the Institute of Psychiatry situated across the road from King's College Hospital, as a good metaphor concerning the opposition of the soma from the psyche. He almost completes it without a dig at the Chronic Fatigue fraternity—succumbing in the end: quite cheeky for someone who has his feet on both sides of the street! Physicians with a keenness for epidemiology, sociology or psychology will treasure this collection.
Rating
(Buy, read and keep)
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||