Are We Ready for a True Biopsychosocial–Spiritual Model? The Many Meanings of “Spiritual”

The biopsychosocial model is a modern humanistic and holistic view of the human being in health sciences. Currently, many researchers think the biopsychosocial model should be expanded to include the spiritual dimension as well. However, “spiritual” is an open and fluid concept, and it can refer to many different things. This paper intends to explore the spiritual dimension in all its meanings: the spirituality-and-health relationship; spiritual–religious coping; the spirituality of the physician affecting his/her practice; spiritual support for inpatients; spiritual complementary therapies; and spiritual anomalous phenomena. In order to ascertain whether physicians would be willing to embrace them all in practice, each phrase from the Physician’s Pledge on the Declaration of Geneva (World Medical Association) was “translated” in this paper to its spiritual equivalent. Medical practice involves a continuous process of revisions of applied concepts, but a true paradigm shift will occur only when the human spiritual dimension is fully understood and incorporated into health care. Then, one will be able to cut stereotypes and use the term “biopsychosocial–spiritual model” correctly. A sincere and profound application of this new view of the human being would bring remarkable transformations to the concepts of health, disease, treatments, and cure.