Behavioral medicine

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Behavioral Medicine is an interdisciplinary field of medicine concerned with the development and integration of knowledge in the biological, behavioural, psychological, and social sciences that are relevant to health and illness. The term is often used interchangeably, and incorrectly, with health psychology, whereas the practice of behavioural medicine also includes applied psychophysiological therapies such as biofeedback, hypnosis, and biobehavioral therapy of physical disorders, aspects of occupational therapy, rehabilitation medicine, and physiatry, as well as preventive medicine. One of its academic forebears is the field of psychosomatic medicine. Practitioners of behavioral medicine include appropriately qualified nurses, psychologists, and physicians.

More recently, it has expanded its area of practice to interventions with providers of medical services, in recognition of the fact that the behaviour of providers can have a determinative effect on patients' outcomes. For example, there exists a large interest in communication behaviors between clinician and patient within the field. Other areas include correcting perceptual bias in diagnostic behaviour; remediating clinicians' attitudes that impinge negatively upon patient-treatment; and addressing clinicians' behaviours that promote disease-development and illness-maintenance in patients, whether within a malpractice framework or not.

The International Society of Behavioral Medicine is the leading non-profit organization in the field, with many national daughter-organizations. Their yearly conferences have become a focus for professional and academic development.

See also

• Health psychology
• Medical psychology
• Occupational health psychology

External links

• Society of Behavioral Medicine home page
• Journal of Behavioral Medicine

v • d • e Psychiatry Subspecialties Behavioral medicine • Biological psychiatry • Child and adolescent psychiatry • Cross-cultural psychiatry • Emergency psychiatry • Forensic psychiatry • Geriatric psychiatry • Liaison psychiatry • Military psychiatry • Neuropsychiatry • Social psychiatry Societies American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology • American Psychiatric Association • Royal College of Psychiatrists Related topics Neuroimaging • Neurophysiology • Psychiatrist • Psychopharmacology • Psychosurgery • Psychotherapy Lists List of psychiatrists • List of figures in psychiatry • List of physicians • List of psychiatric medications • List of psychiatric medications by condition treated • List of neurological disorders • List of psychotherapies • List of counseling topics

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