Perhaps you have ever heard of the biopsychosocial self and wonder exactly what it is and how it has to do with human development. The biopsychosocial self is a theory that comes from psychology and medicine and talks about the different aspects of the human being that make us who we are.
That is, to be who we are we need three important components in us, such as biological, psychological and social. These three components make people who we are, both physically and mentally.
What is
Therefore the biopsychosocial self or biopsychosocial model was born in 1977 by George Engel. The three components that should be considered mentioned in the previous paragraph, He pointed them out as follows for your better understanding:
- Bio (physiological pathology)
- Psycho (thoughts, emotions, and behaviors such as psychological distress, fear / avoidance beliefs, current coping methods, and attribution)
- Social factors (socio-economic, socio-environmental and cultural factors, such as employment issues, family circumstances, and benefits / economy)
The biopsychosocial self can also be used for chronic pain as it occurs due to psychophysiological behavior It is not classified into biological, psychological or social factors. But in addition to this, the term is also used to comment on healthy aspects of a person each time.
At present, this model is used mainly to treat diseases and better understand what causes them ... although the explanations can be diffuse and do not help much to understand the human being. their difficulties, especially when explanations generate confusion.
What does it have to do with human development
According to experts, the biopsychosocial self has everything to do with human development, because it has gone from being theories that were used only to understand diseases to better understand any type of phenomenon related to human experience. Developmental psychology is in charge of studying how the human being evolves at any stage of his life.
As if that were not enough, it also explores the main difficulties found in each phase, so that the healthy person transforms and evolves as they go through each of these stages.
A well-known controversy is birth versus parenting. Experts argue about what weighs the most in someone's development, personality or characteristics, genetics or education. Although in reality, it is known that to form a person's personality a combination of factors is necessary, ranging from genetics and education, to the social factors that surround a person.
The environment, as conductive psychology indicates, plays a very important role in the way and training of people. Relationships and the society in which we live determine the development of people. The biopsychosocial approach encompasses all this and integrates the three elements within the same theory or thought. But it is curious to know how each of the three mentioned elements that affect the development of a person, do not have a greater weight than another factor. They are all important, triggers, or influential.
Components of the biopsychosocial self
As we have mentioned above, the biopsychosocial self is made up of the biological, psychological and social factors. For your better understanding, below we are going to talk about each of the components in a broken down way of each one of the 3 “me”.
Biological
The biological part is the genetic part of the person, it is the part that comes in the genes and that has a direct impact on the body and the mind of the person. The genetics with which you are born can greatly influence the people we become, they influence each one of the people. In addition, the substances to which a developing baby is exposed in the mother's womb also influence aspects of the person's future life. On the other hand, hormones and neurotransmitters determine both the physical state and the mental state.
Genes determine who we are in terms of the physical part of the person but also influence psychic factors such as personality or temperament, which can be inherited from our parents or ancestors. Depression, heart disease, the tendency to depression or introversion, are things that can be explained with genetics.
Psychological
The psychological self has to do with the factors that have to do with the human mind, both the conscious and the unconscious. The psychological self has to do with thoughts, emotions and actions that originate after the appearance of those thoughts in the mind.
Conscious thoughts have a great impact on quality of life and development. The way of thinking makes people be one way or another and react differently to the same situations. The way you interpret things can cause experiences to be interpreted differently.
In addition, both emotions and the way to manage them influence the body and the mind of people, so that, depending on how a person is on an emotional level, the way they perceive life experiences can change. Also, depending on this, it can also change the predisposition to act in the face of life circumstances.
Social
The social part has a great influence and a great impact on who we are today. From the moment a child is born, it receives social influences from its immediate environment. They receive an education and discipline from their parents or close people and This will make the development of one person different from another, depending, for example, on the family environment or culture.
People want to be part of a certain social group, and sometimes they behave in one way or another depending on what they think is expected of them. This can influence psychological factors as emotions, beliefs and ways of acting in the face of circumstances change.
But in addition, social factors are also related to biology and the psychological part since everything has to do with it, people move away or separate from one another depending on the type of people they are ... as you can see, the three components are closely interrelated.