Thinking about thinking in health care: The role of integration.

Abstract

Integrated care provides a laboratory for transcending the mind/body dichotomy that has both empowered and limited health care for a few hundred years. By "integrated care," I mean a process made up of roles, routines of interaction, and ways of understanding that arises from the working relationship between medically trained clinicians, behaviorally trained clinicians, other care team members, and patients. The mind/body dichotomy may be useful for facilitating science, but it does not fit how we experience human beings, who present themselves as unified entities. That is because the difference between mind and body is a function of the observer, not of the phenomena being observed. "Mind" and "body" are different realms of description rather than different entities. To understand the difficulty of transcending the dichotomy, as well as to conceive of a pathway to that goal, requires an understanding of the dynamics of "mental models." Mental models are one element in the evolution of expertise in a domain of practice. The others are roles that are a part of enacting the expertise and routines in behavior or interaction to deliver the expertise. Understanding these elements as interacting allows us to purposefully impact the mental models of the workforce, and to use the roles and behaviors we have developed to deliver the new expertise that is integrated care to find an articulation of a transformative new model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).