Complexity Science in the Future of Behavioral Medicine

Complexity science offers a new, broader paradigm emerging from the traditional biomedical model of medicine. This new paradigm will inform research and intervention, particularly for the most complex medical conditions such as type-II diabetes (DT2), heart disease, pain, and anxiety-depression spectrum (ADS) disorders. Traditional medical interventions, including those from behavioral medicine, utilize the framework ofdiseaseto understand etiology and treatment. The disease framework is based on the idea that some exogenous agent, such as a germ, intrudes upon an otherwise healthy body and causes illness. Etiological concerns for health care providers are then logically aimed at identifying these disease agents as simple material causes, and treatment is aimed at protecting against their intrusion, mitigating their harmful effects, or removing them from bodily systems where they may cause harm.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/psychology_books/1005/thumbnail.jp