1M CONCEPT OF MAN: BIO PSYCHO-
SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL BEING
“One needs to view MAN in his totality – a unified
whole much greater than and different from the
sum of all its parts. A composite being of biological,
psychological, social and spiritual systems, he is
born adequately equipped to cope with
environmental stress both within him and outside.”
 Holistic Approach
Definition of terms:
 Behavior: the overt response of an
individual toward stimuli in his
environment
 Community: aggregate of families living in a
specific facility bounded together by
common interests and goals
 Culture: total pattern of human behaviour
and its products embodied in thought,
speech, action, and artifacts transmitted to
succeeding generations using tools,
language and abstract thoughts.
 Disease: the interruption of health due to
invasion of the body by microorganisms, to
trauma, to mal or dysfunction of the body
parts due to age, nutritional deficiency or
metabolic disorder.
 Family: a basic unit of society composed of
biological or sociological parents and
children born of or adopted by them.
 Health: optimum level of awareness in an
individual which allows him to function
adequately in daily life activities
 Personality: the complex characteristics that
distinguish a particular individual from
another or characterizes him in his
relationship with others
 Religion: personal awareness of the
existence of a supreme being or of
supernatural powers, as expressed in
feelings of reverence, worship and faith.
 Society: an enduring and cooperating social
group whose members have developed
organized patterns of relationship through
interaction with one another.
THE STUDY OF MAN AS A BIO-
PSYCHOSOCIAL BEING
2 Approaches in studying man:
 Atomistic Approach
o Studying the structure of the
human body; its components and
functions.
o Viewing the man as an organism
only (cells, tissues, organs – body
structures only)
o Ex. Taking blood pressure with
the patient
o Studying man in all aspects of his
behavior and his relationship
with others in his environment.
o Viewing man as an organism with
interrelated and interdependent
parts functioning to produce a
behaviour which is acceptable or
unacceptable to him or to the
society.
o Ex. Nursing interaction with the
patient
ORGANISMIC BEHAVIOR (based on 2
beliefs by Byrne and Thompson)
 Refers to observable features and
actions that reflect man’s
functioning as a unified whole
within the environment in which
he exists
 Behavioral features point out to
observable characteristics of the
physical and external shell of
man. This shell gives us clues to
the internal state of the
individual.
 Ex. Voice response, posture, color
of the skin (tell-tale signs of
what’s going on a persons body)
2 Beliefs:
 Man normally responds as a
unified whole
 Mind and body work as
one
 What affects one affects
the other
 Neither one stands alone
 Ex. seeing a crime
frightens a lady resulting
 to increased heart rate, BP
and RR…In her flight to
safety, all the cells of her
body participate in
removing her from site of
danger.
Energy – Matter Exchange of Man
 Man as a whole is different from
and more than the sum of his
component parts
 Given any set of stimuli he
responds as predicted, or
becomes unpredictable of
other extraneous variables
 His responses are varied
and numerous
 Ex. Water is composed of
different parts w/ different
sets of characteristics;
hydrogen and oxygen (can
combust, but when
combined to form water it
can be used to extinguish
fire)
Man as a system:
 Closed System
o Self-sufficient, totally isolated
Input-Output Relationship
o It does not allow outside stimuli
in any form to penetrate its
boundaries, nor does it allow
anything from within it to go
beyond its boundaries
o This system uses its reserves for
energy. In doing so, it eventually
fails to function and
disintegrates.
 Open System
o One which exchanges matter,
energy or information with the
environment surrounding it.
o It is directly affected by events or
changes in other systems.
o This type of system views the
person as a living behavioural
system.
o Ex. Metabolism, growth and total
processes of a human being are
involve in the interchange of
energy, matter/information
among parts of the living
organism in between the living
organism and its environment
 Man, as a unified whole interacts
constantly with his environment, while
at the same time the different
subsystems within him continuously
interact with each other. (this
interaction enables him to grow,
overcome environmental threats, and as
a result makes changes in his body)
 The interrelatedness and
interdependence of man’s subsystem
facilitate the energy-matter exchange
 An input of matter results in an output
of matter for man when they ingest food
and waste products are excreted from
the body
 However, an input of energy need not
result in an output of matter, and then
the input be always energy.
 Energy-Energy
o A quarrel at bedtime may result
in sleepless night
 Energy-Matter
o Fear in anticipation of test results
in frequent loose stools
o Inhalation of pathogenic
microorganisms produces fever
 Matter-Matter
o Ingestion of histamine-rich food
produces hives