Now is the Time: Why Addiction Treatment Professionals and Researchers Can No Longer Continue to Ignore Issues Related to the Other �S� in the BPSS Model

Now is the Time: Why Addiction Treatment Professionals and Researchers Can No Longer Continue to Ignore Issues Related to the Other “S” in the BPSS Model

For many years, addiction treatment professionals and researchers have stressed the importance of holistic approaches to both treatment for and recovery from any form of addiction. Based in the “disease concept,” as initially outlined by the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book and then later by the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text,this very important insight has forever changed the addiction treatment field (and indeed society as a whole) for the better by stressing the interconnectedness of the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of addiction and recovery. More recently, prominent researchers, such as Juhnke and Hagedorn, Oakley and Ksir, DiClemente, Lawson et al., and Perkinson and Jongsma, have promoted the expansion of the traditional disease conceptinto the now prevalent Biopsychosocial Spiritual Model or BPSS Model. It has been observed that some addiction treatment professionals and researchers (especially those who have been practicing for many years using the traditional disease concept model as the foundation of their life’s work) have hesitated to adopt the use of the BPSS Model.