> It adopts the biopsychosocial approach to medicine, which revolves around the idea that both the body and mind are indivisible...

are they thought to be inseperable because they are (roughly) thought to be the same thing?)

> and that disease and illness are not identical.

lost ya there. what is the difference (roughly) please.

how much does one learn about cross cultural differences and sociological interventions? i'm asking because one of the main critiques of the bio-pycho-social approach is that in practice it tends to amount fo bio-bio-bio. that is a criticism of psychiatrists in the first instance, but i'll admit i'm wondering whether the criticism would apply here too.

one thing that interests me is how much one would learn about:
- the general medical conditions that form the exclusion criteria for mental disorders (e.g., ones abilitly to distinguish mental disorder from other conditions)
- knowledge of non-psychiatric medictions such that one is able to figure out interactions. i guess this latter could be in some look up tree (or computer program somewhere) but the first could be tricky...

> Some clinical practitioners and philosophers today believe that this Cartesian line of thought is outdated.

here i'm lost. it isn't you. i often find that in the psychology / psychiatry literature they refer to 'outdated Cartesian thinking' all over the place yet what they mean by 'Cartesian' is very different from what philosophers understand by Cartesian. So... I'm trying to get myself into the head space...

Descartes was a substance dualist, which means he thought that the mind and the body were distinct entities. (Substitute mind for soul if you think your personality memories thoughts etc resite in the soul which of course you need if you want the survival of the soul to be YOUR survival).
Descartes was also an interactionist, however, which means that he thought that the mind and the body could communicate with each other via the pineal gland.

so when people mean to deny cartesian dualism do they mean to deny:

- that mind and matter are seperate substances? (i agree this is out of date now).
- that mind and body interact? (e.g., that mind can cause changes to body and that body can cause changes to mind). denying this seems strange.
- that the pineal gland is the seat of interaction. (sure, give him a break he was writing before the discovery of nerves even)

> The contribution of medical psychologists to general health care increased with their use as primary care doctors in the world's largest HMO, the California Kaiser Permanente. These psychologists work along with primary care physicians in order to determine optimum treatment plans for all patients with physical and/or mental illnesses.

So primary care physicians give the diagnosis (so they can decide whtether there is a general medical condition or not) and then medical psychologists can come into play instead of psychiatrists or whatever. I bet that saves California Kaiser Permanente some money ;-). More seriously though, why the hell not.