SBSM Clinical Science Webinar Series
The SBSM is happy to announce a new webinar in our Clinical Science Webinar Series! In this webinar series, we will discuss cutting-edge research and its application to clinical care. In our next session, we will discuss Biopsychosocial Awareness, a new construct aimed at measuring mind-body dualism, as well as its implications for the treatment of a variety of medical and mental health conditions, including somatic symptom disorders.
Title: Introducing BioPsychoSocial Awareness (BPSA): A new construct for multidisciplinary clinical practice and research
Date/Time: Thursday, October 16, 2025, 12:00-1:00 pm EST
Presenter: Alla Landa, PhD
Description:
‘Mind-body dualism,’ the notion that the mind and body are two separate entities, is a common belief among patients, clinicians, and healthcare organizations that has the potential to influence the acceptance and effectiveness of a variety of treatments. More recently, there has been a paradigm shift away from ‘mind-body dualism’ and towards a more integrated, biopsychosocial understanding illnesses and treatments. To effectively and systematically facilitate this paradigm shift, a new way to conceptualize and measure awareness of a biopsychosocial approach to illness is critical. In this webinar, Dr. Landa will present a new construct termed BioPsychoSocial Awareness (BPSA), which reflects the degree to which an individual or group accepts a biopsychosocial approach to health and disease. She also will introduce a scale to track changes in BPSA, a conceptual model to understand BPSA, several techniques of BPSA facilitation, and the clinical and research applications of the BPSA construct and model.
Presenter:
Alla Landa, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and Principal Investigator of the Developmental Psychosomatics Lab at the NY State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Landa’s research bridges clinical psychology and neuroscience and is focused on the interface of emotion regulation, interpersonal well-being, and body health, with the goal of uncovering the etiology of psychosomatic distress and developing new, effective treatments. She is also developing new methods for implementing a paradigm shift from mind-body dualism to biopsychosocial healthcare, and she is a founder of a novel multidisciplinary Columbia Psychosomatics Conference and Training Program.
If you are interested in learning about this topic beforehand, please consider taking a look at the following:
The SBSM Clinical Science Webinar Series will continue to be held quarterly and will focus on the practical application of cutting-edge research to clinical settings. If you are interested in having your work featured at one of these sessions, please contact Christopher Celano (ccelano@mgh.harvard.edu).
We look forward to seeing many of you there!