ABSTRACT
The biopsychosocial model of health and illness underlies many contemporary approaches to concussion. The model is celebrated as supporting “integrated” approaches to concussion that examine biological, psychological, and social dimensions of injury. The biopsychosocial model is indeed notable for how it looks beyond physiological variables and incorporates psychosocial considerations such as emotions and social support into the diagnostic picture of concussion. I argue that, despite its promise as an integrated approach to concussion, in practice the biopsychosocial model commonly reinforces the fallacy that scientific experiments and statistical techniques can neatly divide human experience into separate components. I demonstrate that, while the model’s consideration of psychosocial variables seemingly enables a better understanding of embodied concussion experiences, it too often produces narrow conceptions of these experiences as sums of their component parts. I explain that critical qualitative analysis reveals how seemingly different aspects of concussion are co-constructed and emerge together through embodied experiences of injury. I conclude the chapter by pointing toward alternative, interdisciplinary ways of knowing that resist the compartmentalization of human experience.
